


In The Aftermath

by OdioEtAmo



Category: BBC Ghosts, Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: Coming Out, Historical Romance, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Period-Typical Homophobia, Reminiscing, Romance, a lil bit of pining in here for good measure, also Thomas stans Carly Rae Jepsen. this is canon u cant tell me otherwise, and he makes a new one for himself, and i changed my mind! i'm giving him a boyfriend, changed the rating cuz theres smooching now, homosexuality (and a stunning amount of it frankly), i deleted mambo no.5 out of these tags yall better thank me, i will put a warning in the desc of any potentially upsetting chapters, just an old gay havin some feelins. figuring out some stuff, nOBODY CAN STOP ME, the captain deals with his identity and old personal feelings, we find out more about the captain's story (past), will be some fairly grim discussion about the war
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 07:37:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 35,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18774181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OdioEtAmo/pseuds/OdioEtAmo
Summary: The thing with endings was that they were always preceded by a beginning. It just so happened that beginnings were as a rule, almost always better than what followed them, unfortunately enough.A new programme replaces the Captain's precious Tank Battles, about life after the war and he is reminded of the person he was, and the love he once had. We follow him as his mind bounces back and forth between existing in the present and missing what is no longer. Yet no amount of pining can bring the past back... can it?





	1. Off The Air

You could have said that the Captain was in a bit of a tizzy. Of course, if you did actually say that, you would have been wrong. The Captain, you see, wasn’t the type to get upset over trifles, quite the opposite, and he most certainly did not get into tizzies! Needless to say, this was a matter of the gravest significance, with ramifications that would spread far indeed.

 

“What on earth do you mean, they’ve taken it off the air?!”

 

“Well, it’s a figure of speech actually!” Interjected Pat cheerfully. “It means they aren’t broadcasting it at the moment.”

 

“I know what it means!” The Captain snapped, a little harshly upon reflection but these were desperate times. “How can they just replace it like that? This is vital material! Educational! Informative! It’s core to their programming- one of the best, if not the best series the History Channel has to offer! To do away with it like that is criminal!”

 

Allison shrugged. “I guess it wasn’t so… popular. Not a lot of interest in tank battles these days after all.”

 

“Damn popularity, it’s a matter of principle! I will not stand for this, I will not! You must write to the channel at once! I insist upon it!”

 

“Not sure they’ll pay much attention- just one viewer isn’t going to make the difference.”

 

“Allison,” He beseeched her. “Principle. We cannot let ourselves be overwhelmed by our foes so easily!”

 

“Fine.” She relented. “I’ll write in when I have the time. But the programme they replaced it with can’t be so bad, can it? It’s still about the war- should be right up your street?”

 

The Captain reeled. “In The Aftermath: Our Lives After The War has none of the integrity of its predecessor! Why on earth would I want to hear about what people did after the War? It isn’t pertinent, in fact, it’s impertinent! The two cannot be compared!”

 

He nodded to himself, quite carried away in his own anger. Why, after all, would he want to watch a program about people who survived the war? It was like it had been conjured expressly to irritate ghosts. He couldn’t hate those who appeared on it, he would not begrudge them their lives. But that certainly didn’t mean he had to watch it, to suffer the ignominy. To have missed the chance to lay down his life for his country, as well as the life that there was to be lived when it was all over; that was hard to bear sometimes. He was not going to let some silly little producer’s mistake drain the pain out of him like a dropped stitch in a scarf. To let them unravel him would be folly indeed.

 

Allison was making an odd face, as if unsatisfied with his answer. “You never know until you’ve given it a try. You might enjoy it more than you think.”

 

The Captain huffed. “Unlikely.”

 

He did not watch the television that day, he would not be worn down so easily. He did spend a while listening to the wireless with Julian, but it couldn’t have been anything notable because none of it stuck- he could not recount a word of it to anyone who might ask (not that they did).

 

It seemed he had been driven to distraction, he couldn’t help but think as he lay in his bed that night. And it wasn’t just because the History channel had made the worst decision in their own history, damn them. He couldn’t help but wonder what sort of life he would have led after it was all over. Would he have stayed in the army? He’d been sure of that sort of thing once. That was a long time ago, though, and it was easy to think about that sort of thing when it was a far off prospect. Of course it still was technically, but it was a missed one. He had decided that he simply wouldn’t think about it, and he hadn’t for so very long. He was caught with it now though. Would he have settled down? Resigned himself to shuffle papers in some dusty corner of a government building? There might have been a family, and a wife. Could there have been a woman? Some kind of exception to a very sordid rule? Deep down he doubted it but he could not deny that it might have happened. Maybe it wouldn't have been so very dreadful as he had always thought. And that was just one possibility.

 

Maybe he would have done... something else.

 

There were other options that could have happened, choices he might have had to make, in a dream within a dream. Things that called out to him more, even if they were on a path that was for the brave and the foolhardy only, and he had wondered for a long time about his ability to be brave.

 

It wasn't about his ability to be brave per se. In the heat of battle things were different, a split seconds decision was what separated glory and cowardice, that first thought that sprung up in your mind and you followed it audaciously, with no time to think otherwise. Sometimes he wondered if it wasn’t harder to be brave in the cold, sober light of day, with a thousand anxieties bearing down upon you, every impulse jarring against each other. Every second, and hour, and day to reconsider. To him at least, that sort of bravery had always come the hardest to him.

 

As the moon cast a patina of light through the curtains and across his room, he wondered if it would seem awfully hypocritical to watch that programme after all. Then again, was it not in many ways a sign of humility to cast an open mind on such things?

 

Hang appearances, he decided on reflection. It wasn’t like it mattered after all- he would simply watch ‘In The Aftermath’ and judge accordingly. He nodded to himself. His plan of action was decided. For now he would rest.


	2. The Ending before The Ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mind of an old ghost wanders, as it so often does, back to life.

Alone in his room, he dreamed a very old dream that night. 

 

The Captain held the envelope in his hand. He had been waiting for this for… he would not exaggerate. He had been waiting for this for a while. He hurried up the front steps to the dance hall. In here, the lights shone brightly against the polished wood floor, under the many moving feet of men and women, many from the local environs who had as yet not lost the look of children. The feet swirled and whirled under the mass of bodies, cavorting together, even with some on the outside swaying to the tune. There were no downturned faces, no subtle tears here, nobody would allow themselves that. The brand of alacrity that came tuned with fear was a potent one, as people shirked those parts of their minds that cared about life outside this room, or the nature of it. The Captain had always thought of the dance halls as a show of courage and defiance, something sacredly important at a time of war. 

He did not however consider himself to be a fine dancer. He could dance of course; that did not mean he cared to seek it out. It simply wasn’t his cup of tea. 

But that was by the by anyway, for dancing had not been his purpose in coming here. There was a particular face that he’d have the opportunity to look upon tonight. He prowled around the edge of the dancefloor, trying his level best not to look like he was prowling. He had not gotten the date wrong had he? He pulled the letter out of his breast pocket, smoothed it out and peered down at it. No, he had not, of course he had not. He had read those letters too many times to get it wrong, he knew well enough how to discern that scrawled handwriting. And that was a three, not an eight. He was sure of it. Oh good god, now he wasn’t sure of it. 

Just passing out of the line he made with his pacing, a couple swirled past, lost in the dance and veering off course. The Captain caught a glimpse of wavy brown hair, stepped back to let the two of them pass by, and stood there, watching. There he went. The Captain had panicked for nothing. 

Unlike him, Frederick happened to be a very fine dancer. This was not the first time he had watched him careen about with a girl in his arms, oblivious to the world around him. He was not as precise or focused as he ought to have been when dancing, taking a very… freeform… attitude to it all. Of course, what he lacked in some areas he made up for in enthusiasm. The Captain hadn’t seen a girl that danced with him and didn’t come away looking equal parts dizzy and infatuated. There was something in those hazel eyes that made everything he did or said seem so very earnest that made encounters with him more poignant. Or perhaps it was just the uniform and a handsome man inside it that they liked. That made sense too. 

Then the song ended, and the Captain watched as Freddie broke with his dance partner, making his excuses, so very ingenuous. Then he was leaning back against the wall, nonchalant. 

“Want a cigarette?” he asked, pulling a packet out from his pocket. 

“Hullo.” Said the Captain simply. Words hadn’t caught up to him yet. 

“Hullo you.” Freddie replied. He put a cigarette between his lips, and hunched over for a second, striking a match against the bottom of his shoe, using it to light his cigarette. “Weren’t waiting too long for me were you?”

‘Three months’ echoed through his head. Three months since they had seen each other last. No, that wasn’t what he meant when he asked. It’d be a dreadful waste of time to be bitter about it. 

“Hardly.” Said the Captain. “I just arrived.” 

A smile swept Freddie’s face, the lights of the room playing across his jawbone. “Good.” He said easily. “I hate to keep you waiting.” 

The Captain understood. His mouth twitched upwards at the side, not quite hidden by the mustache. “Well. The waiting is always worth it.” 

He watched as Freddie exhaled, cigarette smoke swirling about the two of them. He kept his gaze to himself, but it was not easy. He was just about the only one in the room that had any need to. Suddenly it felt far too stuffy in the hall. 

He reached out, patting Freddie on the arm. It had been too long since he had been able to do that.

“What’s our plan for action then? Perhaps we might go somewhere more secluded.”

Freddie shifted uncomfortably, his smile receding. It left his face strangely bereft. 

“I’d rather we stayed here, actually. There’s something I need to tell you.” 

Then it was the Captain’s turn to be unsettled. 

“You’re sure we should talk here? Walls have ears, you know.” 

“Well I hope this one doesn’t.” Freddie rapped a knuckle against the wall they leant against. “I certainly can’t see any.”

The Captain was diverted for a second, though his amusement could not stem the tides of worry sweeping through his mind. 

“Well don’t beat about the bush, out with it! What’s so pressing that you can only tell me here, eh?” He asked with an attempt at vigour. 

Freddie took another puff of his cigarette, twiddling it between his fingers, nervous energy leeching out into his environs.

“I’m suspected.”

“Suspected? My God, what of?”

“Of- you know.” He waggled a finger back and forth between the two of them. “Some sort of a… personal situation. Of the us sort.”

“Someone knows we’re-”

“Not we.” Freddie stopped him. “Just me, they don’t know anything more.”

“Dear Lord.” The Captain laid himself back, sinking into the wall. “And you think you’re in danger from this- this person?” 

“I really don’t know. But we’ll have to stop seeing each other. I won’t risk you getting mixed up in this.” 

The Captain’s heart sunk through the floor. 

“But, if you don’t know there’s a real threat…” He started and ended a sentence with great doubt, the spark of courage flickering into his mind. “Well, you know you… I. I’d put my neck on the line for you.”

Freddie dropped his cigarette butt and stomped it out with his foot. “You can’t mean that.” 

The Captain looked away, uncomfortable in his collar, which was suddenly too tight. 

“Oh don’t make that face. I would too, you know I would. Just not now.” He forced himself back into a smile, a very meagre one. “If I’m… implicated…” He drifted off, losing his train of thought. “Well, I’d be neglecting my civil duty if I let you get involved. I know the air force would be sad to see me go. But to lose you into the bargain? It’d rock England to its very core! I could never have that.” 

The Captain could have laughed at that. Bitterly. 

“If you think so. You don’t think your higher ups might turn a blind eye?”

“We burn through new boys like kindling, so it’s possible, but I don’t want to put that to the test.” 

The Captain coughed, and the weight of worry and harsh, harsh sobriety swayed him. “Of course. You’re completely right, about all of this. Tactically speaking, it’s our only option.”

Freddie nodded, though he looked so glum that it was hard to believe that he even agreed to it. 

“It needn’t be goodbye.” He offered by way of an apology. “Perhaps, when the war ends…”

The Captain mustered himself. “Yes, absolutely. Think of Monty in the desert-”

“We must persist! Yes.” 

The Captain felt a hand clasp his shoulder. It almost made him sick, how dearly he wanted more.

“We will persist.”

 

 

The lights shone upon him too bright as he ended that fateful encounter, watched his lover fade away into the lights and noises of the dance hall and knew then that he could only ever want things that he would never have. 

Later he danced with a young woman with a round face and black curls. She was a very pretty partner, he told himself that. He was to be admired for his good luck with her. 

He could not bear to look her in the eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this! I just had a wave of inspiration this morning, and am quite chuffed with the results. 
> 
> This will have an overarching plot by the way! All will be revealed soon-ish(?)


	3. 1553 Miles across the Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's TV time!

The Captain tapped his swagger stick against the top of his boot. The time for action was now, the TV set sat before him, and the programme would surely start in a moment. Yet the blasted thing wasn’t on, and Julian was nowhere to be seen, so he couldn’t do the honours. 

He looked around, awaiting Alison’s imminent arrival. It was time! The programme surely started now, had most likely already begun. Where could she be? 

“Dammit.” 

The Captain hurried off in the direction of the kitchen. Music was pulsing at a frankly unnecessary volume. The Captain peered round the door. Inside, Mike was thrashing about wildly, holding a slice of bread and a butterknife in his hands. The Captain assumed this was what dancing looked like these days. Personally, he didn’t care for it. Robin and Thomas stood beside the wireless. Robin was regarding the goings on with a deal of interest that was not in Thomas’ face. He was simply staring into the middle distance.

“Take me to the feeling... “ Thomas whispered to himself in a tone that bordered on the religious, just audible under the thrumming pulse of the sing. “When the lights go out… run away with me. Run away with me…”

The Captain shook his head, taken aback. “Robin?” He appealed. “What on earth is going on here?”

“Mike, uhhh.” Robin waved his arms in a rough appreciation of- actually the Captain had no idea. “Getting down with he bad self.”

Then he pointed at Thomas. “Plagiarising.”

“I am not!” Thomas thundered, outraged. “I am merely- merely- being inspired!” 

He froze, shuddering for a second, as Mike danced right through him, stopped at the counter (though still swaying to the music) and buttered his slice of bread with something that declared it was ‘unbelievably, not butter!’

If the Captain were alive in this post-rationing age of plenty, he would not let himself be fobbed off with something that wasn’t butter, no matter how much disbelief it inspired.

Behind him, Robin broke into a very strange yet somehow graceful… dance? No, that was more of a thrash and the Captain would call it such. He was just thrashing by the table. 

Then Alison came in and the Captain promptly remembered what he had been doing. 

“Alison!” He said emphatically. “The time is now.”

Alison blinked at him. “The time…?”

“Yes! My programming is on, and as per the terms of our agreement the television should have been on for at least seven minutes by now.”

“Ohhhh. Right.” She said, grabbing a bite of Mike’s bread which he protested loudly. “I thought you weren’t watching it now that tanks hour is over?”

“I feel it is my duty to give all their programmed achievement a chance at least. I think I was a tad rash about it yesterday.” He admitted, head held high. Truly, he was a man of great dignity.

“Okay, sure. I’ll put it on.”

 

The Captain watched with anticipation as the television was switched on- right in the middle of an ad break. He had missed more time than he had realised. He thanked Alison anyway, and watched the many ads for funeral care. Oh, how irony was sickening. 

After too long the programme came back on, and the narrator, a young-ish man with a rather striking aquiline nose was strolling along a city road. Then he was knocking on a door, a door which belonged to a house, as many doors did. He met a much older woman, who invited him in, and then it switched to a shot of her, sitting in an antiquated armchair. She talked at length about her struggles to leave her homeland of Russia, to be with a British soldier she had married during the war. 

 

The show documented how she - Olga as her name was- was allowed to leave with a large group of other new brides, all destined for Britain. She had been at the airport, waiting for the plane that she was to catch, when she got talking to a rather important fellow who had been on the country in business. When he invited her to fly with him, in his private craft, she accepted his offer.

“I was very lucky.” She admitted to the presenter in her subdued accent, a leaden weight captured in her eyes. “I was the only one who arrived in Britain.”

The Captain looked away, surprised to note that a lump had formed in his throat. 

It wasn’t like it was something unheard of. No matter where in the world, for any genuine sentiment expressed by a human being, there would surely be others to oppose it, to detract from such simple happiness for personal gain, or just spite. He wasn’t sure which of the two was worse. 

What hurt him about it was the pointlessness. What harm could be done by a few women emigrating, eh? The war had ended, the war had just bloody ended, and all that hurt, all that hurt to so many people, done and dusted and irrevocable. They wanted to create more of it? They wanted to spread more woe?

A tap on the shoulder scared the Captain out of his wits. He jumped to attention, emitting a spooked sort of noise. 

“Turn that frown upside down!” She said enthusiastically. “It makes your mustache look sad.”

The Captain’s frown intensified. “Just leave me to it, Kitty.”

She blinked at him, swaying side to side, hands swinging against her skirt. 

“Are you thinking about something sad? When my sisters got sad I’d find out what they were sad about, and then I’d tell them why they shouldn’t be sad about it, so that we could go and play in the gardens.” She said, smiling at him. “What are you sad about? If it’s something hard I may need a while to think about it.” 

“Futility.” He said simply.

Kitty’s smile broadened, if that were even possible. “That’s an easy one!”

“How is it easy?” The Captain grimaced sourly.

“Well, if everything’s pointless, what’s the point in worrying about it?” 

Huh.

The Captain sighed. “I’m sure you’re right, Kitty. But- 

“You are?” Kitty’s eyes widened. “Yay!” 

“Well, I...” He slowed. He decided not to say any more. It would not be worth it to anyone.

“Oh!” She exclaimed. “I just asked Fanny if she wanted to come and count the bugs on the big shrub outside but she said no. Would you like to?” 

The Captain took a breath, his eyes turning back to the television, where an elderly couple talked about how happy they were to have a life insurance provider that they could trust.

“Fine.” He said. “Perhaps some fresh air will do me good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading!!!!!! Seeing your feedback on this fic (and on the discord asfdkslfd) is so fantastic its so incredibly gratifying.
> 
> Hope you enjoy episode 5 tonight! I'm sure I will!


	4. One Sunny Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All endings come paired with beginnings. The Captain remembers one such beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: I have retconned a character name from Kitty to Katie because having two Kitties would be confusing.

The thing with endings was that they were always preceded by a beginning. It just so happened that beginnings were as a rule, almost always better than what followed them. It was true in books just as much as in life. How many books had fantastic opening lines that you remembered well after reading? The Captain could think of a few. There were many books that he thought were better to begin with than two hundred pages in. 

How many famous ending lines do you remember?

He pondered on that for a while. Of course, he was at a disadvantage- it was very difficult to read when dead. But, regardless, nothing came to mind. He supposed that was inevitable. A few pages into any book there were so many ideas buzzing around, so much potential. Anything could happen, even those things that were wild or beyond belief. But sooner or later, a story needed to be wrapped up. The walls closed themselves in and suddenly everything is contained, perfectly sequestered into a little package that could not be anything other than what it was. There might be a great deal of satisfaction in it. Some endings were well executed, each storyline ended stylishly and kindly. Not all did, though. By lack of skill or machination, many writers reached ends that were soaked with loss and disappointment. Some left you wanting more, which was not so good if you could not have it. At the end of the day nothing could dilute the frustration when you were left at the end of something that could have been so much greater. 

On the subject of happy beginnings though, the Captain knew he was lucky to have that much. There was one that he liked to think of above all others. He kept it locked away at the back of his mind for sunny afternoons. 

 

 

The hills rolled away into the distance. It had rained earlier, but those rain clouds had moved to pastures new, leaving the scent of fresh rain on the grass and an exceptionally fine day behind it. The Captain was cycling down the way, for no more reason than that he could and he wanted to. He reached the top of a steep incline, and panting slightly, allowed himself to free wheel his way down the hill, feet off the pedals. The light breeze pressed against his skin and he took a deep breath of it, and relishing it. He had been doing this since he was a boy. It had the most exhilarating effect on him.

Then a horn sounded behind him, startling him out of his easy elation. He swerved out of the way as a car plunged down the hill, hurtling towards him. It missed him by a hair’s breadth, almost sending him over. He just barely got his bicycle back under control in time to see that the car’s driver had not managed the same. It steered right just a second too late to avoid a close shave, and at the exact right time to plunge into a ditch that lay at the side of the road, bringing the car to a rather muddy and lopsided halt. 

A man jumped out of the drivers side, and started waving wildly, flagging the Captain down. He braked, coming to a neat stop before the man. 

“I’m so sorry!” The man exclaimed. “I nearly took your leg off!”

The Captain shot him a ferocious look, heart still pounding a little too quick from the nerves. “And my head with it! My god man, what are you playing at?!” 

The man took a deep breath, and he was trembling- badly enough that the Captain could see it from a while off. 

“Clutch came out in my hand, I- I’m really so sorry! I’d never mean to run you off the road!” He held up his hand- indeed, still holding the clutch. 

The Captain harrumphed. “I certainly shouldn’t think so.” 

Behind the man, his passengers were getting out of the car from the left hand doors. Several women, one older and two that from the looks of them couldn’t either of them be past twenty. They hovered around the front of the car, assessing the damage. 

“It looks bad, Freddie!” One of them called out. “I don’t think we can fix it on our own.” 

The aforementioned Freddie held up a finger apologetically to the Captain. “One moment please.” 

He hurried over to his car, peering over the shoulder of one of the young ladies. The Captain pushed his bike over, taking a look at the damage himself. The axle had done something that suffice to say nobody wants an axle to do, and looked rather mangled. One of the wheels was hanging at an angle that was very wrong. 

“D’you think it’ll get us there?” One of the girls asked anxiously.

“Certainly not.” The Captain said just as Freddie blurted out a “No.”

They looked at each other. 

‘Handsome lad.’ Said some small, idiotic part of the Captain’s brain. ‘Lovely arms.’

The Captain shook the thought from his head. It was entirely not his business whether or not the fellow was quite as handsome as he was, and he was. He played very fast and loose with road safety, that was all he knew about this Freddie. He and his biceps had no business being that foolhardy, regardless of how good he, and they, looked in a smart white shirt rolled up past the elbow and a tank top*.

“My God, what a to do!” Announced the older woman loudly, interrupting the Captain’s arm-based reverie. “We’re going to be so late!”

She pursed her lips, leaning against the side of the car and making occasional sounds of disbelief. 

The elder of the two girls turned to look at the captain. He supposed she was quite a pretty sort- with the same bone structure and bright eyes as her fine brother. 

“I’m terribly sorry, but do you know how far it is to the next village? I think we need to call someone for help.” She asked him very politely. 

“What? Oh, yes of course.” The Captain straightened up. “Little over a mile away. Just keep heading down the road, you’ll come to a little graveyard by the roadside. There’s a small road to the left after it, just before this road crosses a river. There’s a phone box just down the left road, I’m sure you have someone to call in case of something like this.”

She nodded. 

“I’ll go with you!” Offered the younger girl excitedly. “It’ll be just like an adventure!” 

“Absolutely not.” Interrupted the older woman- their mother, presumably. “I’m not having you running off to have any more adventures today, young lady! You will stay right here with us, Katie will go and get help on her own.” 

“It’d be faster if she cycled.” Said Freddie, and then immediately looked like he regretted it, as all eyes turned to him. “Not that I meant- uhh-” 

His mother tutted loudly. The Captain regarded them all with a deal of interest. They all seemed to be of a rather peculiar sort.

“No, you’re absolutely right.” The Captain agreed. “If you borrow my bike, it’ll take you half the time. Just so long as you bring it back in one piece.” 

Katie nodded. “Don’t worry, sir. I don’t make a habit of being reckless on the road.” She shot her brother a rather pointed look. Freddie developed a sudden interest in looking down at his shoes.

The Captain lowered the saddle, so that it would not be quite too long for her in the leg, and she thanked him again.

“And remember-” He told her, “If you reach a pub called the Rose and Crown you’ve missed your turning.” 

The whole family watched as she set off down the road, except for Freddie, who had taken up a position at the side of the car, murmuring to it, while patting its side, as if it were a horse that was about to be put down. A very peculiar sort indeed. 

“I am sorry for my son, he can be so impertinent sometimes!” Said the older woman to him. Then, “Alice! Would you stop that! It’s unseemly!”

The younger sister had climbed back up the hill and was rolling down the grassy incline that lay to the side of the road, and was now rolling down it, hurtling toward the bottom of the hill with reckless abandon. When she reached the end of the hill she stood up, a little unsteadily, and laughed. Then she started running back up to the top of the hill. 

“Alice? Alice, what did I just say?” She hurried up the hill, holding onto her veil trimmed hat as she struggled over to where her daughter was playing, her high-heeled shoes undermining her ability to walk on soft earth quite significantly.

Then Freddie tapped him on the shoulder. “Look.” He pointed to the next hill, which Katie had just reappeared at the top of. 

“Surely she can’t be back so soon?” He wondered aloud to himself as a car summited the hill behind her, a shiny black sedan that came rolling down the hill towards them. This car had a great deal more success coming to a leisurely stop than the last one. A man leant out of the drivers window, waving up at the hill. 

“My gels, my darling gels!” he called out to them in an overblown, affected accent that the Captain most certainly did not approve of, and was only marginally more pleasant to the ears than his poor excuse for a mustache was to the eyes. “We were quite sure we’d lost you! We’ve been looking everywhere!” 

“Aaaaaahhhh!” Young Alice charged down the hill at full speed. “Uncle Morris! Uncle Morris!” Her mother struggled along behind her. 

Another man got out of the Sedan’s passenger seat, coming to stand by the car. He looked to be in his late twenties, with fair hair and a thin, calculating sort of face.

“Blimey.” He said, which was really an understatement. “You’ve really buggered it now, Fred.” 

Freddie scowled at him. “I was trying to avoid hitting someone, I think that’s more important than a broken axle.” 

“Well I daresay you wouldn’t have to worry about hitting people if you didn’t drive like a maniac in the first place.”

He turned his attention to the Captain. “I do apologise about him. Jolly kind of you to look out for my family, I’m sure they’ve done nothing to deserve it.” He said severely. 

There was a loud shriek behind them, as their mother tripped in her heels, tumbling into the arms of the man with the ‘mustache’.

“My dearest Madge!” He breathed. “Why, we must get you home at once! What a day it must have been for you.” He escorted her to the car, followed by her giddy daughter who still seemed to be vibrating with energy. 

“Come along all!” He beckoned the others. 

Cyril nodded to him, and then turned back to his brother. “We’ll call a tow truck for you. Stay here until they arrive.” 

Then he headed back toward the sedan, amid protestations from his brother. 

Katie handed the Captain his bicycle back, and thanked him again, a long-suffering look about her. She had gotten oil from the chain on her skirt. 

Then all but Freddie piled back into the car, packed tight. The engine thrummed back to life, and continued back up the hill. He swore under his breath, before leaning back on the bonnet of his car, and sighed. 

“Fantastic. What an afternoon to waste waiting around like this.” He eyed the Captain. “Katie did give your bike back, didn’t she?” 

The Captain pointed to it, as she had left it, neatly leant against the ditch. 

“I daresay you can get on with whatever it was you were doing when we interrupted you.” He said. 

The Captain considered. “Yes.” He agreed. “But I could wait with you, if you’d like. Make the wait a little less dreary?”

Freddie’s mouth dropped into a little ‘O’ revealing a row of slightly crooked white teeth. “Well.” He said finally. “If you really are sure, you’re more than welcome to stay.”

“Of course. I’m not the sort to go back on my word.” 

And so he stayed. The two of them stood together in a mutual, slightly awkward silence for a while, as the sun emerged from what little pocket of cloud had fettered it, bathing the road in strong sunshine.

Freddie raised an arm against the light. “Warm considering it’s rained.”

“I believe tomorrow will be a scorcher.” The Captain agreed. 

“Well, I’m parched. You?” 

“I’m a tad thirsty.” The Captain admitted. 

“Jolly good!” He held up a hand. “Just a tick.” He slid over the bonnet of the car and went around to the back. He popped open the boot, and slung out a large wicker basket and a blanket, which he held over his shoulder. Then he hopped over the ditch at the side of the road and, putting the basket down, spread out the blanket. He sat down on it, beckoning the Captain to do the same. 

“I oughtn’t take your picnic.” He protested. It would have been asking too much.

“Would you mind awfully if I insisted? I have a feeling it’ll go to waste otherwise.” He leant back on his elbows, squinting up into the sky. 

“That’s very kind of you then.” The Captain sat down with him, since he couldn’t very well have done anything else. “Thank you.”

“Thank you too.” 

“Ah- cheers.” 

The Captain felt Freddie’s gaze upon him. He felt then quite sure that he didn’t know what he was doing. It was unsettling in the sort of way that was very tight across the chest. Freddie picked a glass bottle out of the hamper, unstopping the end. “Well, there’s elderflower cordial, and plenty of sandwiches.” He handed the captain a small bundle wrapped up in a napkin. “I think those ones are jam, but there’s really no knowing.”

The Captain unwrapped them- they were indeed jam sandwiches- and good ones at that. It might’ve been raspberry jam, which was very good, since as the Captain knew, raspberry jam was the very best sort of jam. 

Beside him, Freddie took a swig from the bottle of cordial, and proffered it to the Captain. The Captain put his own lips to it, definitely not thinking all the confusing, indescribable thoughts about lips that pulsed through his brain. Indeed, it tasted as good as a drink did only on exceptionally pleasant days. 

“Thank you.” He said again, handing the bottle back a tad begrudgingly.

“You’re very gracious.” Said Freddie, regarding him with curious eyes. “I nearly hit you with my car, plough into a ditch, and you wait with me for the tow truck. I don’t think many men would have done that.”

The Captain coughed, feeling his face flush. “Nonsense. I’m sure anyone with a half-sufficient moral compass would have done the same.” 

Freddie raised an eyebrow at this, though he let the subject drop. 

“Well I daresay I ought to introduce myself. Frederick Du Chatelet, bit of a mouthful I know, so everyone just calls me Freddie DC.” A grin swept his argent face, as the light caught him in just such a way as to make his face shine beneath those freckles. 

The Captain coughed again, the tips of his ears pinking as Freddie DC held out a hand and he shook it. 

“There.” Freddie proclaimed. “I’m sure we’ll be fine friends.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta-da! Big chapter!
> 
> I believe this actually makes this the longest published fic in this fandom! Woo!
> 
> *For those unaware, sweater vests were originally known as tank tops (as they were often worn in tanks). They are also apparently called 'sleeveless thumper dumpers' according to Vicky Pedia though I do doubt the veracity of that particular name. 
> 
> As always, thanks very much for reading and leaving feedback! I love you all~


	5. Boo!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas calls a select group to a house meeting to ask for help in his pursuit of Alison.

“House meeting!” Shouted Thomas. “I demand a house meeting!” 

The Captain’s pace quickened, following the voice to Thomas’ little languishing nook, where he was holding sway. Around him stood Pat, Fanny and Julian perched on the edge of a table. They were listening to him with varying degrees of interest.

“I tell you, my tactics are not working! Normally I would never considering asking you- you philistines- for advice but you are all I have. I implore you- help me.”

The Captain piped up, not one to refuse an honest plea for assistance. “Well, if it’s tactics you’re looking for, you’ve come to the right place! Tell us the specifics with all speed, and maybe Julian can fashion us some kind of campaign map.”

“He doesn’t want that kind of advice, stupid.” Julian waggled a finger in the air, because he was a bit of an arse really, and that was the kind of thing that he did. “This is a meeting about romantic strategy, only for those with... “ He leant in rather lewdly, and the Captain had to the resist the urge to whack him with his stick. “Experience.”

The Captain’s brow crinkled. A more delicate situation for sure. 

“No matter. Romance it is then. What do you need my help with?”

Julian scoffed at him, from atop his table. “You? You’re going to give him romantic advice?”

“Well I don’t see why not.” 

Julian sniggered to himself, and the Captain tried dearly not to think of the satisfying sound that giving him a good hiding with the stick would make. 

“I don’t see what you could know about romance, why you weren’t even married!” Fanny added snootily. “Were you?”

“Fanny, your husband murdered you.” He returned her disapproving gaze. 

“At least I had a husband!” 

The Captain was not going to dignify that with his thoughts. He would be patient with her. 

“I’ve had my fair share of romance, whatever you may think. I don’t think marriage has anything to do with that.”

A silence fell over the lot of them, as a fly buzzed overhead, throwing itself toward the lightbulb above it like a fly possessed. It didn’t have half as much regard for its mortal coil as a creature should, certainly not one with as short a life span it had. At least it was unlikely to become a ghost. They didn’t need any more of those around. 

“I’m sure we’d be happy to hear about it if you’re willing to share.” Pat smiled at him encouragingly. He had the sort of smile that all small children were meant to see, the Captain thought. Sometimes that could make it a tad disconcerting to be at the receiving end of it.

“Yes.” Agreed Julian, even more perturbingly. “You know what, go on. Tell us about a conquest of yours.”

Curses! The man meant to test him. Well the Captain wouldn’t be caught with his trousers down, so to speak. Certainly not by the likes of him.

“Fine! Since you insist. It so happens there was this girl that I had a great deal of regard for once. And we, well, we-”

“Name?” Julian demanded.

“Robert! Ahhhh…” His brain chugged impotently. “Roberta. Yes, Roberta. Lovely girl. Worked in the local library, a fair bit older than me, hair was completely silver. Very fine to look at, very fine indeed. Had a beautiful chest, quite broad, and muscular.”

“This woman did?” Julian cut across him again. 

“Yes, dammit!” The Captain snapped. “She was a woman, and she had a chest, and it was lovely. Very… pert……..bosoms. Oh good lord.” He took a deep breath, a very deep one, because he needed it. “No more of this! I don’t know what you’re getting out of this Julian and I don’t care to know either! What were we talking about before this ridiculous tangent, eh? Pat!”

“Well, Thomas was asking us with help about-”

“His ridiculous pass at Alison.” Julian added, giving the Captain a look that said far too many things, which he frankly didn’t like the implications of. “Now I was wondering-” 

Thankfully he was cut off before he could resume his previous line of questioning. 

“A pass?” Thomas took a step toward Julian, making a face that he surely thought was fearsome. “How dare you sir! I make no measly passes. Do you mock my earnest attempts to woo Alison, to make her my… boo?”

Fanny eyed him with a mild degree of revulsion. “And what on earth does that mean?”

 

Thomas mused to himself for a second. “Pray, a boo is a term of endearment… I believe. Somebody said it on the netflix?” He looked around for agreement. None came. “Well, I thought it had a scintillating little double entendre- to connote romantic intention, while also referencing the post-mortal aspect of our relationship. Don’t you all think?”

Blank faces looked back at him. 

“What a trial it is,” Thomas said, hurt quivering at the edges of his lips, “to spend eternity with people who cannot grasp the nuances of poetry.”

Pat chose the moment to speak. “Back on what we were saying. I was married too you know, and I think that if you really care about Alison you’ll let her be. Let her decide for herself who she wants to be with and what she wants to do. If you love her-”

“Most ardently!”

“Then you care about how she feels, don’t you? I think you should ease off on all the romance stuff until she’s more comfortable, mate.”

Thorne regarded him, looking indignant and entirely unimpressed.

“Anyone else?”

Julian piped up. “I met Margot in my second year at Cambridge. I particularly remember thinking that she had a really spectacular-” 

He was interrupted by Robin phasing through the wall behind him.

“What going on here?” 

“Oh, Thomas was just asking for advice on wooing Alison.” Pat gave him a sunny smile as Julian shifted on his table, a tad miffed at being cut off in what was undoubtedly one of his more inappropriate stories. But he stayed quiet.

Robin nodded sagely. “Thomas.” He said. “Want to love someone. Is normal- everyone do. But, shouldn't love someone who don’t want be loved by you. Is bad time.” He shook his head. “Bad, bad time.”

Thomas sniffled violently. If they hadn’t been so very dead the Captain would have wondered if he wasn’t allergic to something. 

Dust perhaps. Or histrionics.

“Is it so wrong to want someone to hold? Can you condemn me for that, Robin?”

Robin shook his head solemnly. “We all lonely here, even though we together. But if Alison die and join you, would be the same! Lonely. Just a bigger crowd.” 

Thomas took a deep, quavering breath and burst into tears. He stormed out of the room, doubtless to go drown himself in the lake again or something else tawdry and melodramatic.

He didn’t show any signs of coming back.

“Right.” Said the Captain, taking ahold of himself. “House meeting’s over. Back to whatever you were doing, all of you.” 

He conducted them out of the door, and the wall respectively, before sitting down on the windowsill. He gazed out into the gardens, at all the land that belonged to Button house. No matter how much Thorne protested, they were stuck here together. It looked as if the loneliness of Button house was plaguing all of them at the moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was a lot of shenanigans! And may I just say, Gay Mess Cap? In my mind, the aforementioned Robert was indeed a previous relationship of the Captain's. I do enjoy the idea of a younger Captain, absolutely in awe of his silver fox librarian >:3c
> 
> Young Cap sounds like a rich vein to me actually. Perhaps I'll write a few little drabbles exploring it- but only once I'm done with this fic! I shan't get distracted!
> 
>  
> 
> I use a lot of exclamation points in these chapter notes, eh?
> 
>  
> 
> As always, thank you all for reading!!! I'm really excited by how many people seem to be enjoying this, I hope you keep doing so!


	6. A Week Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Captain visits a friend...

The sun was just receding through the trees when the Captain finally reached the house. It lay down a long winding driveway, where the forest faded, and land rolled away past the house, taking a gentle incline down into a valley that was visible far off. On the other side, the nearest town was just visible, where train tracks bisected the hillside. 

It had been a longer walk from the train station than he had expected, and he was sure he was late. He had hoped to be there by five, and it was not five anymore by a long margin. 

“So you did come!” A cheery voice resounded from one of the upstairs windows of the house. 

That put a smile on the Captains face, quick as a flash. He hurried up the steps to the house, as an impressive thudding echoed from inside the house and the door flew open. 

Freddie tumbled towards him, pulling him into a crushing hug. 

“Thought you’d stood me up, old boy!” He laughed into the Captain’s neck. 

He pulled away, just a little too soon, and they stood there, looking at each other. 

The captain smirked. “Surely you know me better than that.” He said, without a trace of reproach. 

“I do! That’s why I was waiting!” He tilted his head in a smile, letting out a little of that glorious vigour that he kept in there. 

“So I saw.” He coughed, already feeling uncomfortably warm. “I suppose I ought to congratulate your brother on his promotion.” He added politely. He didn’t want to get ahead of himself. 

“Oh yes, but not now.” Freddie urged him. “He’s such a bore, he’ll just go on about it, and I’ve already had to listen to him all week! I think it’ll drive me insane if I have to hear anymore about it today.” He took the Captain’s suitcase, which was only a small one, and put it neatly just inside the door of the house, which he shut. 

“It was so good of you to drop everything to come and see me.” He took the Captain by the arm, leading him around to the side of the house, where a cast metal bench sat atop the grassy verge, looking down across the land. He reclined lazily on it, looking out over the rather magnificent view as the Captain sat down beside him. “I know there must be other things you’d rather be doing with your time off.”

The Captain snorted. “Hardly. Besides, it’s been a while.” 

“Did you miss me?” Freddie asked cheekily.

“Of course I did.” He admitted. “Does it matter?”

“I like to know I’m liked.” Freddie said with an odd smile, in a way that seemed to be somewhat, if not wholeheartedly avoiding the question. He stared off into space, deep in thought. 

When it was like this, the Captain thought he was okay. That terrible pressure that wound itself around his chest eased up, just a little. It was with him everywhere he went, one nagging reminder of exactly what he was. He wasn’t bothered by its presence anymore, had made peace with it a long time ago. He had been himself his whole life after all. He was used to his own foibles.   
He felt guilty to bring that feeling near Freddie, who had done nothing to deserve being the object of it. He was a kind, open sort of soul, and the Captain was drawn to him for it. Perhaps it was selfish to behave so, or wrong. But he was not a harm, not some sort of wanton predator, and it just so happened that that roiling desperation within him was always worst when he was far away. 

Freddie patted him on the hand. “Look at that!” He said pointing upwards. “Is that an Osprey?”

The silhouette of a bird of prey soared far overhead. 

“Yes, looks like it.” 

Freddie leant over him, following the great bird of prey with his gaze while the Captain followed him with his own. He could hear him breathing, so close he could reach out and- no. None of that. He could feel that swooping in his chest again, almost too much to bear. If he was very honest, that thudding temptation was every bit as undeniable when he was close to Freddie too. The difference being that when they were close together he could revel in it. 

“Majestic, isn’t it? Wouldn’t it be fantastic to be able to fly like that! She makes it look so effortless.” He stared away wistfully into the sky. The Captain was sure that if he only could he would just sprout wings and fly away, live with the birds in some paradise unseen by human eyes. It’d suit him. He deserved to live unfettered.

“Hullo!” A voice shouted down to them out of one of the upper floor windows. 

They looked up. Freddie’s youngest sister was practically hanging out of the window above them. 

“Hullo Alice.” The Captain called back. 

She waved at him. “We thought you weren’t coming! Freddie got so upset!” 

“I did not!” Freddie yelled back, his cheeks pinking. “So go away! Adults are talking here!”

“He absolutely did!” She retorted insistently. “He kept going on about how everything was ruined, it was really very silly.” 

Freddie looked like he was about to explode. “Will you let me have my private conversation in peace, please?”

Alice stuck her tongue out at him. 

“Right, fine!” He grabbed the Captain by the hand, pulling him away in a hurry. “We’ll just have to go elsewhere!”

The Captain felt the pressure of a hand held in his, saw the pink in Freddie’s cheeks and in that moment it was just about all the world was. 

“Are you going to tell him your news?” Alice shouted after them as they disappeared together into the glade of trees that bordered on the house. Then her voice grew more distant as the trees grew denser around them. They came to a very old, tall tree, from which hung an old wooden swing. Freddie kicked one of the trees at its stump and then swore to himself quite loudly.

“Don’t pay attention to anything she said! You know it’s all a load of balderdash, she’s so contrary! I’ve half a mind to set her newt free in the pond. But I shan’t! And that’s because at least I can behave like a proper adult!”

He let out a tight breath of air through his teeth, as the Captain watched, so very complacently. He hadn’t listened to more than a word she had said actually. He had been a tad distracted.

“She’s still a child, Freddie. I daresay that’s what you ought to expect from her.” 

“Don’t lecture me!” Freddie snapped. It took the Captain quite aback. He had not known Freddie to get into such a temper before, and it worried him. 

Freddie slumped into the swing, rocking back and forth glumly. “I’m sorry.” He said. “There’s something I need to tell you.” 

The Captain regarded him closely, nerves threatening to undo him. What on earth could it be?

“Well, out with it then. No point keeping it back now.” He said, but with none of his usual force. There was a softness there that he wasn’t used to having. 

“It doesn’t look like we’ll have peace for much longer now, does it?” He asked, not rhetorically but in a way that required no answer. “And you’ll get out from behind a desk too, be out there on the front lines. Things will be different. No time for us to do things like this anymore.” 

He had a melancholy that cut deep into him, that held his body in a droop. The Captain would have done anything to wipe that sadness away. 

“Now now, it’s not so bad. Even if war should come, we’ll still be able to write each other, won’t we? Of course we will. It may just be a little longer between visits, but I’ll not have you making yourself upset about the thought of it, d’you understand?” He patted Freddie gently on the shoulder. “Besides,” he said, “we’re not at war yet.”

Freddie swallowed loudly, something that in anyone else would have surely been annoying. 

“You know, the RAF have been recruiting lately.” He said softly.

Oh.

The Captain cleared his throat. 

“You signed up, didn’t you?”

Freddie nodded.”I- would have been bottom of the pile, but since I actually know how to fly… well, I got moved up.”

“You’re-”

“Yes, I’m in, effective next week. So this week…”

“So soon?” The Captain couldn’t help it, couldn’t keep his mouth shut. They would be taking him away in a week! To God knows where! He could end up in India, or Gibraltar or any other damnable place so far away from him. So horribly far away.

“Now you understand my telegram. Why it had to be this week.” 

“I do.”

For all his bluster, the Captain felt at risk of falling into a very deep misery. 

“It’s been a fine year though, hasn’t it?” Freddie asked, as if he had seen the Captain’s thoughts. Who’d have thought that car accidents could have such great consequences, eh?” 

“I don’t think anyone could have predicted that.” He agreed. “And we’ve had glorious times together. Remember Pirates of Penzance?”

“Absolutely!” He smiled, breaking into song. “Go ye heroes, go to glory! Though ye die in combat gory-” He broke off. It was a bad choice of song for that moment. “Thank you for taking me to it, eh?”

“I’d do it again in a heartbeat.” The Captain admitted, for it was true. Despite that first close shave, and the dreadful pining that so much of his time was now devoted to, he would not take it back. Not now and not ever. It could not have been wrong.

Freddie let out a little shuddering sigh. “A few of my father’s old friends are still in the RAF, they’ll find me a squadron with hurricanes or those fancy new spitfires. And I am sure it’s the right thing to do. I’ll have a roaring time, you know I will. I just want to know that this won’t spoil what it is we have. You are my very dearest friend, after all. It’d kill me to see us just drift apart.”

“That won’t happen.” 

“Are you sure?” Freddie looked away suddenly, and the Captain could have sworn he saw tears in his eyes.

“Positive. I know I shan’t. And you shan’t either. So it’s simple.” 

He peered around Freddie’s side, watching him scrub at his reddened eyes. Very gently, he took the hands that scrubbed at his eyes in his own, putting them back down at his side, tucking a stray hair behind his ear for him. 

“Oh come here, you silly thing.” His words betrayed as much of his heart as they could, as he pulled Freddie into a hug, holding him so very delicately as if he was liable to shatter.

“Would it be terrible of me to want to stay like this for a while?” Freddie asked the Captain’s shoulder, his voice muffled by the fabric and the wracking sobs that shook his firm, warm body. 

“Doesn’t matter.” The Captain said, holding onto him, his Freddie, for dear life. He would never have admitted it, but at that moment he needed to be held too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed that and it was well executed. This particular week will occur more in the Captain's memories...
> 
> Thank you for reading!!!!


	7. In The Loop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pat makes a request from the Captain.

Pat made a very complex movement with his hand, ending with a flourish. 

“And that-” He said proudly “Is how you tie a Flemish loop!” He held his imaginary knotted rope up in the air. 

The rogues gallery of spectators gave him a small, but polite round of applause, as he took a little bow, ever the enthusiastic instructor. 

“Right!” He said cheerily. “Now, I want you all to have a go, and we’ll see how you do!” 

Assorted on the sofa, Kitty, Mary and Humphrey’s body sat. Kitty and Mary both began waving their hands round in front of them with varying degrees of skill that in some, naming no names, bordered on buffoonery. Naming no names. Hem hem.

“Ah, Captain!” Pat beamed at him, putting his imaginary rope down on a side table. “You’ve missed the first half of knot class, but you can still join in if you like! We’ve still got the fisherman’s bend and the cat’s paw to go.”

The Captain raised a hand politely. “No, I thought I’d just head outside and watch the swans.”

“Theys be creatures of the devil!” Piped up Mary from the sofa.

“Then I daresay someone should be keeping an eye on them, eh?” The Captain said jovially. 

“Ah, that be wise.” Mary agreed.

“How about after?” Pat asked, still abominably keen to get him involved. “We don’t have anything planned, but you said a while back you might tell us about the first time you flew in a plane? I think it’d really liven up the afternoon.” He added, extended a hand around the room. 

The Captain considered, drumming a finger against the neatly pressed hem of his jacket. “Well, perhaps later. Think I’d have to mull that one over a bit, psych myself up. You know.”

Pat nodded, as if he did. 

“Well, I’m sure we’ll all be looking forward to that!”

“Yes, indeed!” Exclaimed Kitty. 

“Okay Kitty, maybe we should try this one again.” Pat turned his attention back to her. “Do you remember the way the rope goes first?” 

“This way?”

“No, Kitty.”

Then the Captain wandered away, and soon enough he found himself making his way out of the dusty hallway. Through the front door with its new wormwood hole. Then into the Gardens, out almost as far as the lake. A bumble bee buzzed right through him, making him writhe momentarily with discomfort. Dreadful stuff. Even that was not quite enough to put him off his fine, fine mood. He lay down on the grass, a brief distraction from decorum. He lay back, arms beneath his head and looked up into the sky. He was in the mood for sentimentality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short one! Really this is just a prelude to the next chapter which will be longer!
> 
> Thank you all for the lovely feedback and responses I got on the last chapter! I'm so glad these boys mean as much to you all as they do to me!


	8. Above Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Freddie has a surprise for the Captain... :3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a while! This chapter took a lot of work to get through haha I hope I've done it any justice.

“You’re sure you won’t have any more?” Mrs DC leaned over politely, pan in hand. In the mahogany shade of the dining room, the family sat around a long dining table, all bunched around the middle. The seat at the head of the table lay empty as it bathed in the light from the open window. Freddie sat beside him, tucking into his porridge with the gusto of a man who hadn’t eaten in days. As the Captain remembered, he had done much the same at dinner last night. As for the Captain, he had eaten quite as much porridge as he had a mind to, and a deal more besides. 

“No thank you.” He said politely. 

Freddie paused between mouthfuls, swallowing. “More for me then?” 

Alice eyed him over the table. “Freddie, you eat like a hyena.”

“You’ve never seen a hyena.” He retorted. 

“I’ve read about them.” 

“So you’d know, would you?” 

Alice satisfied herself with rolling her eyes at him as her sister interrupted. 

“After breakfast could you take me and Alice into town? I said I’d meet up with Anne Cavendish today.” 

“Oh, what a nice idea!” Their mother agreed. “I’m sure you’d all have a lovely time, she’s a very nice girl. And very fond of you, Freddie.” She gave her son a very pointed look before sitting down again. 

“Absolutely not.” Freddie answered resoundingly, dishing himself out the very last of the porridge before setting the pan down with a thud. “It’s my last week so I get to do what I want, and I already have plans.” 

“Fantastic.” The Captain seized on the opportunity to divert the conversation. “What’s on the itinerary?” 

“That’s for me to know.” Freddie winked at him, and the Captain managed to choke on air, devolving into a coughing fit. Freddie patted him rather hard on the back, and he managed to get it back under control, eyes watering slightly. 

“Pardon me.” He wheezed to his captive audience. 

“If you don’t have plans just say it.” Cyril glared at him over the table. 

“The thing is Cyril, I do have plans. I just don’t see what they have to do with you.” Freddie turned again to his sisters. “I will drop you off by the Cavendishes, but I’m not coming inside.” 

Katie nodded before any more arguments could break out. “Fine.” 

Freddie was true to his word, and sooner rather than later they were all hurtling through the countryside. As the Captain had learnt from experience, Freddie always drove like a maniac. Aside from their first meeting, he usually proved to be a capable maniac. The Captain trusted him of course. He just didn’t always trust him not to be reckless. He swerved around a corner, where the hedges dropped away, opening out into a green, and the car screeched across the rough gravel, turning a full circle and skidding to a halt less than two feet away from the pond. Geese hissed angrily at the interloper. 

The Captain’s hands gripped his legs so hard that his skin had turned completely white. The sisters got out of the car as if all this was perfectly normal. It would not be their normal for very much longer, he knew, so they’d have to get used to sensible driving and not- lunacy. Another girl, leaning against the large willow tree that towered over all of them embraced Katie, before running up to the open window.

“Hello Freddie!” She said in an extraordinarily sunny manner that matched her little mousy brown plaits. “Won’t you come with us? I heard about-”

“Certainly not!” Freddie grinned at her. “Have a nice time, girls! I’ll pick you up at four!” 

He put his foot down on the gas, and sped away through the green, grinning to himself like anything as he left the girls behind in the moment. 

“Where are we going?”

“Secret.” 

A sort of mad satisfaction lingered in his eyes then, as the road opened up before him and he drummed out a thumping, constant rhythm on the dashboard with a finger, so dreadfully full of himself that he must’ve been the only person in his world. What he was thinking the Captain could not tell, but it made him yearn. He always wanted to know. 

“Don’t you think you were a little cruel to that poor girl? She was just being polite. You must’ve startled her half to death.” 

“A little excitement’s good for the soul.” His face fell though, into a more burdened look. “I’m only being careful.” 

Then it was the Captain’s turn to frown. “Careful of what?”

“Of her! She’s a very nice girl, you know. And fond of me, didn’t you hear mother over the breakfast table?”

“I did.” 

“Exactly! And I can’t stand that.” 

“Niceness?” 

“Yes! People who think niceness is a quality to marry for deserve to spend the rest of their lives skipping rope and pressing flowers! I shan’t be one of them!”

He paused, less angrily. “I just don’t want her to get the wrong idea about me. I know she likes me, and I don’t want to lead her on at all. She’s a very… imaginative girl.”

The Captain reached out, and ruffled his hair. “Come now, that’s quite enough of that. You don’t need to explain it to me.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” This was better now, just the two of them again. No family, as nice as they were. This was how they were best. “And what’re we doing today anyway?” 

“It’s a surprise.”

“Will I like the surprise?”

“Maybe.”

“That’s not very definite.”

“No, it isn’t.” Freddie admitted. “So try to like it, won’t you?” 

As if he would do anything else.

“I will.” 

Freddie leant his head against the headrest. The open window tousled his curls in the wind, a tonic against the vigorous heat of the day. Handsome boy. They took a right, driving down a track off the road. 

“Have you guessed yet?” 

“No.” 

“Then you should pay more attention.” He said as the car came to a halt. “Because we’re here.” 

“Oh.” Said the Captain, peering through the windshield. “It’s…”

It was. What the ‘it’ in question was… an airfield? 

“What are we doing here?” He asked, trying to keep the hint of nerves from his voice. 

“What d’you think?” Freddie shimmied out of the car, and offered the Captain his hand as he clambered out his side. “Come on, they’ve got things waiting for us.” 

“They do?” 

The Captain would have very much liked to know who exactly ‘they’ were, and what it was they had up their sleeves. 

“They sure do! I got the whole thing worked out- come on!” Freddie grabbed him by the arm, not forcefully, not so hard it hurt but firmly, and led him towards a red brick building beside the two small hangars. Freddie led him in, through the hallway and into a small room decorated wall to wall with little photos in frames. Some had been coloured, bright hues applied to the black and white polaroid. The one empty wall had a bench pushed against it, and hooks hung from the wall, draped with paraphernalia. 

Freddie grabbed one equipment set from the wall, tossing it to the Captain. 

“Get yourself kitted out.”

“So we really are flying?”

“I hope so.”

The Captain made a measly attempt at changing into his flight suit as Freddie pulled off his shirt, revealing so much more of him than had been on display before. He was always captivating, at any time and in any sordid place, but summer made him glow the most. A miasma of freckles crowned his godly body, supple and muscular and handsome, a birthmark noting a space where arm met shoulder that lips might be placed. No doubt by some lucky, lucky girl in the dark recesses of the future. But in this moment, only the Captain could see him, which made the sight almost his. 

“Need some help?” An eyebrow was being raised at him.

The Captain coughed. “Me? I’m fine, quite fine.” 

“You’ve buckled that wrong.” Hands touched at his chest, adjusting all the little fiddly bits that the Captain had put on without looking. 

“Good Lord.” He breathed to himself, as a finger trailed up his jaw.

“What was that?” Freddie asked benignly as he fixed the aviators hat’s strap under the captain’s chin. He stood back, admired his handiwork and nodded approvingly. 

“Nothing.” 

He nodded. “Alright. Let me just make sure everything’s set up, and then we can get to it.” He disappeared through the green lacquered door, leaving it swinging before him, and the Captain’s heart pounding so hard you’d have thought there was something wrong with him. 

There was something wrong with him, and its name was Freddie DC, the smiling face of whom beamed at him from one of the little framed photos. He peered at the photo a little more closely- Freddie and several other chaps flashing their... medals? No, surely not. He gave the little inscription a cursory glance. John Wilson, Roy Janes, Alexander Du Chatelet.

Of course. Looking closer, there were some differences, no freckle on his bottom lip, a harsher brow and lighter hair, making this the father. The Captain knew very little about him actually, a rarely discussed subject in the house. But if Freddie really was as much a chip off the old block, then the Du Chatelets had a lot to be proud of- of both of them.

“Having a look at father, are we?” 

The Captain spun around, embarrassed. “He looks a lot like you.”

“So I’m told.” Freddie stood in the doorway, arms crossed. “I see it more in Katie, I think. She has a lot of his features.”

“I see he survived the War.” The Captain commented offhandedly, without really realising he had said it.

“Oh yes. He made it nearly ten years after the war, which I’m told is quite impressive for a man with that amount of shrapnel in him. Long enough to see us all right at least.” 

The Captain frowned. He hadn’t really meant to bring it up. He didn’t mean to find touchy subjects and then touch them. 

“Well don’t just stand there gawping! Alfie’s got the Avro all ready, and I shan’t be kept waiting.” 

“Righty-o. Jolly good. Lovely.” The Captain rubbed his hands together as they set off together. 

“Are you nervous?”

“Certainly not.” 

“You’re looking a tad green about the gills.”

“I am not nervous!” He protested. “It’s only my first time.”

Freddie looked at him and chuckled. “You know I won’t let anything happen to you. Never in a thousand years.”

The Captain nodded numbly. 

“But you don’t have to do it, you know. If you’re chicken.”

“I most certainly am not!” He denied feverently, maybe overdoing it slightly. “Let’s get on with it, shall we?” 

They exited the building, making their way onto the runway, where a little two-seated biplane sat on the runway, all ready for them. 

“Here you go.” Freddie helped him up into the back seat, hopping up into the cockpit. Another man watched from afar, smoking a cigar. Freddie gave him a thumbs up.

“Ready?” 

The Captain felt the power of the engine coursing through the craft, and him inside it. Then the great thing began to whir into motion, and oh God, the ruddy thing was moving! Why had he agreed to this? Freddie would’ve let him off, he would, if he has just been sensible enough to ask, and-

Dear Lord. He was embarrassing himself now. He took a moment out of time to muster himself, letting out deep breaths and trying not to think the worst. His stomach did a flip, as the little plane lifted away, and now the ground fell away beneath them, and they were in the air.

“Marvelous, eh?!” He heard Freddie shout, just audible above the roaring of the engine.

The Captain emitted a response, but not a coherent one, a rather half-squeak, half-squark that he very much hoped Freddie did not hear. It was cold up here, even on this hot day, and he was very glad for the hat and goggles. Gaining confidence, he peered over the side, regarding with a mixture of fear and awe the patterns that the field and woodland below him formed, quilting the land. 

Freddie was right, it was marvelous. To fly above the ground just like some great mechanical bird, the wind in your face was an incredible thing. 

“Look!” Freddie yelled. “We’re going over my house!” 

Indeed, the ground under them curved into the dip of the valley, Freddie’s house growing closer and closer as the hill steeped up beneath them. Surely they were going too fast, flying too low! At this rate they’d- 

Freddie pulled up at what certainly seemed to be the last moment, seeming to barely miss the hillside by a few seconds. The Captain barely managed to contain what he was sure would have been a greatly humiliating scream as the plane turned at an angle he didn’t like at all. He could hear laughing from the cockpit, muffled by the wind but definitely there. It seemed that flying was a very promising career for young men prone to fits of vehicular lunacy. Then again, wasn’t all flight vehicular lunacy? He thought further to himself as Freddie turned the plane through some more, undoubtedly impressive maneuvers- the discipline of flight simply was lunacy! To seek to do something so undoubtedly unadapted to human ability was madness in itself, they were not designed to fly as a species, and here they were, out in the air! 

It was like some strange sort of dream.

They soared through the skies together, and time did not seem the same as it did down below, for it seemed as if they couldn’t have been flying for more than half an hour when Freddie looped back around, passing over the train station that the Captain had alighted at. They were making for the airfield now, descending, and when the wheels met the runway, shuddering down to a stop on the runway he was sad for it. 

Then Freddie hopped out, and he was laughing- they were both laughing with the sheer absurd joy of it all. 

The Captain stumbled back to the ground, his legs unused to the ground, slipping forward, only for Freddie to catch him, holding him steady in those strong arms. They gazed at each other, dizzy with the proximity, and the Captain found that there was a clarity, a sudden knowledge in the way that Freddie saw him. Those gorgeous eyes blinked at him, and then Freddie closed the distance,

Kissed him.

Dear Lord. The Captain quivered in his very core as warm lips pressed against his own, and then it was everything, all he could feel. He leant into the kiss, felt arms tighten around him, and then release suddenly. Freddie pulled away, leaving him wanting. 

“Not here.”He whispered, all serious and so handsome

“Wh- a- yes? I-” The Captain mumbled, utterly incoherent even to himself. They bolted back into the building, passing a bewildered Alfie on the way, and tumbled into the changing room without so much as a hello, neither of them able to care about rudeness. Freddie shoved a bench against the door, barricading them in, and they fell upon each other in sweet bliss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know jack diddly squat about airfield protocol so please forgive me for any glaring inaccuracies! 
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed this, and the season finale yesterday :0 cant wait for season 2!!! Thank you so much for reading, I appreciate all the love this fic has received and I'm very proud of it...


	9. Sharing is caring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Captain shares some stunning anecdotes...

“...and he was a jolly good sort, really, very skilled at what he did.” The Captain recounted to his captive audience. The ghosts sat outside on the ha-ha, beside the lake, as the Captain held sway, gesticulating avidly with his stick.

Kitty raised her hand.

“Yes, Katherine?” He turned towards her. “You have a question?” 

“Oh, yes! Was he handsome?” Kitty asked eagerly.

The Captains mustache twitched. “As a matter of fact he was, Kitty. Very handsome in fact, he had a very pleasant sort of face, quite long but you see it suited him, and very-” he tapped his stick impatiently against his leg, searching for the right words. “Full of character. Lots of freckles, one on his lip, just here, and now I think about it, he had a very fine pair of eyes to him as well. Does that answer your question?”

Kitty beamed at him. “But what about his body? Was he very strapping?”

“Oh, most certainly. A more strapping lad you wouldn’t see for miles around- as I recall he was very much admired by the local girls, though he never married. He had quite a slim build, but muscular where it counted, and the freckles- well, they were very becoming, or so I heard it said.” The Captain broke off, and coughed loudly. “Ahem. So, in a word, yes.” 

“Oh goodie!”

Kitty and Mary clearly shared his inclination toward deep contemplation, and looked very engrossed indeed. Behind them though, several unimpressed faces regarded him. 

“And what of the flight, damn your eyes? You’ve yet to tell us anything about it!” Thomas demanded. 

The Captain bristled. “Yes yes, I’m getting to that bit! Miss Katherine merely wanted to build a picture in her mind’s eye, and I do think that a little extraneous detail really adds depth to an anecdote!” 

Thomas laughed insufferably. “Is that what you call it?”

“By God, you are impertinent Thorne! In the army we’d-”

“Ah yes, you’d thrash my backside! I believe you may have mentioned it one, nay a thousand times! I am leaving! Julian!” He stood up dramatically, beckoning to Julian who was lying lazily against the sundial. 

“Think I’ll stay here actually, see I went on a lot of aeroplanes in my time. There was this private Jet owned by the Saudi Ambassador, and the flight attendants, well, lets just say they were very good at what they did-”

“Hold on there, I haven’t finished my anecdote!” The Captain interrupted him. “Wait your turn!”

“Fine!” Thomas protested over the top of them. “I shall go back to the house and see if Alison will turn on the spotify for me instead!” 

“Ooh.” Said several of the other ghosts at once. Robin stood up. 

“Actually, have to go now.” He explained. “Important… uhhh… business.” 

“Oh yes, I- uh. Me too.” Pat agreed. “Bagsy Cyndi Lauper!” He exclaimed excitedly, and the Captain eyed him with intense disapproval. Chap didn’t even have the nerve to look embarrassed, damn him. 

“Absolutely not sir!” Thomas roared. “I called the spotify first, I have dibs on the songs! And I insist that we cut to the feeling, so to speak!” 

“But you always play that!” An argument quickly formed, as the Captain turned away. 

Typical it was, just typical. The Captain could tell when he was not wanted, so he turned heel and walked away. A dreadful lot they were, really dreadful! Sometimes the Captain didn’t know how he stood it, he really didn’t.

“Captain! Captain wait!” The Captain ceased his despondent march to see Kitty and Mary hurrying along after him through the garden. 

“What is it?” He demanded crossly. 

Mary spoke up. “We’s decided not to go with the others.” 

“Yes- if you tell us more about the pretty aeroplane boy!” Kitty insisted. The two of them nodded, thick as thieves. Not quite the audience he had hoped for, but an audience nonetheless. 

“Dids he have a hairy chest?” Mary leant in conspiratorially. 

“No actually.” 

The two of them sighed. 

“Well, what do you expect, he’s a real person, he can’t be all fantasy.” 

“What about the legs? Was they nice?” 

“Tremendously. Long, but not too long, if you know what I mean.” 

The two of them nodded, satisfied. 

“And… was he a good kisser?” Kitty asked eagerly.

The Captain opened his mouth, and closed it again several times looking to all the world like a bewildered guppy. “Ah, you know I uh, well, you see- I.” He took a deep breath. “I really think he was, you know.” 

Mary nodded approvingly at him. “That be very good to know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sweet brave boy sharing with the group there! I think, though I'm not quite certain, but I think that we're around a third of the way through here :D
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'll get started on Ch 10 after I've had lunch!


	10. Dearest Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'mma be real with you chief, this one's mostly smooching.

They spent the next few days in a sort of dizzy exaltation, late to pick up the girls from town, late to rise and late to dinner in the evenings, in a little world of their own. The Captain could hear everyone else’s frustrations in the dust in each room, but he was too caught up and selfish in it to care. 

He was stealing something precious from them. But they had had him for many years and he only wanted one week. One week of glances over breakfast, and breathless kisses, and waking up early in the morning to find a visitor waiting patiently at his door. Only this morning Freddie had begged off having to go and meet his uncle in town, even though they knew it would sadden him. It was nothing to the madness of a few hours of separation. 

On their own they had contrived to have a picnic together. An ill-planned yet deeply romantic notion and one that put the Captain in mind of a certain afternoon. Waiting for a tow truck with a deeply handsome man that he barely knew. He had been just as much of a romantic then, he realised. He had just not known it of himself. 

They had set themselves up together in a little area of the Du Chatelet’s grounds, a clearing in the trees where a small body of water sat, far too small to be a lake but just large enough to have a small island in the middle with a tree on it, fringed by pondweed and home to a rather nervous moorhen. The grass there was cooler to sit on than the lawn just by the house but it afforded a degree of privacy that even in the throes of sentimentality seemed necessary. 

They had brought out the picnic blanket, and they lay upon it haphazardly, a whole loaf of bread perched on the blanket by Freddie, which he tried his very hardest to cut. With little success.

“We should’ve cut it back in the house.” The Captain observed, very unhelpfully. 

“This was your idea! You should have said so when we were in the house!” 

“You said you’d handle it. “ 

“Shush.” Freddie tried to saw away at the poor loaf of bread that had really looked so nice a few minutes ago, still failing miserably. “Oh hang it all.”

He rolled over, leaning his head against the Captain’s chest. 

“My God, man. You’re covered in crumbs.”

Freddie shook himself in response, showering everything with bread crumbs, and they were everywhere, even in his hair! The Captain laughed and pulled him close, feeling that sharp little intake of air as Freddie’s lips pressed against his, gentle and caressing at first, then becoming hungrier as they passed the point where the purely ecstatic became desirous. A hand ran through his hair, tousling it out of a state of neatness, making it as wild as the rest of him. The Captain’s arms curled around a body that was as warm and real and soft-yet-unyielding as he could possibly have desired. There was such a glory in it, in the tongue in his mouth that still seemed unsure as to what its purpose in all this was and in the incoherence of his mind, like it was filled with very important orders being yelled at him and he couldn’t make out what they could mean. It was a glory that he could not comprehend, fading to the sweetest memory any moment that it wasn’t happening, and growing in intensity every moment it did. Like his heart might burst with the pounding.   
Only one thing was, at that very moment. The thing that was, was this. He was made completely mad by this man, with his saccharine eyes. His hands explored, finding their way under Freddie’s shirt to caress the small of his back, as Freddie practically growled into his mouth. Then he pulled away, leaving the Captain so horribly bereft as he gasped for air. 

“Fred… oh, dearest boy…” He found himself saying, equally in need of breath as he watched his lover’s chest heave. 

Freddie rested his head against the Captain’s chest lay like that for a minute. 

“You only call me Fred when you’re annoyed or thrilled.” He said, smirking. “Which is it now?” 

The Captain gasped appreciatively as Freddie began unbuttoning his shirt, and felt him press kisses where he did so. 

“I rather think you know.” He said huskily. 

“Who’s to say.” Freddie’s head came to a rest, lying there against his stomach, the pressure reassuring and not uncomfortable. “I hardly think I know anything anymore. My world has been quite shaken.”

The Captain clutched his head in his hands, feeling soft brown curls against his palms and running his fingers through it. 

“I know.” He admitted. “It feels quite ludicrous.”

“Is it always like this?” 

“Is what?”

Freddie clambered up him, so that their noses were almost pressed together. “You know. This sort of… union. I mean, you have before, haven’t you?” 

The Captain did know what he meant. “I have. With two other men.” 

“I knew it.” Grinned Freddie. “You sly dog, you. You knew exactly what you wanted from me, didn’t you?”

“What? No.” The Captain gave him a hard look, though with very little effect. “It’s not like I was trying to bring this about. I would never have demanded this from you, I only wanted to enjoy your company.”

“Oh?” Freddie teased him. “You want to go back to just enjoying each others company?”

“Shush you.” The Captain commanded him, unable to conceal his smile. “I still enjoy your company. Only far too much.” 

“You really do.” A smirk ran along that fine mouth of his, the cheeky thing. The Captain ran a hand under his shirt again, this time finding his ribs which were notoriously ticklish, laughing as he thrashed around, attempting to get away. 

“Stop stop stop! Stop it!” He slapped the hands away, rolling away along the blanket, rendering the Captain’s body immediately lonesome. He turned on his side. “You must tell me about your other boys! I need to know if I have competition.” 

The Captain snorted. “Competition? Hardly.” 

“Just tell me!” 

“Fine.” He allowed, casting his mind back. “I was very young the first time. I was sixteen and he was seventeen, we were on the school cricket team together. It just sort of happened one day, and the day after he came to me, and told me that we’d never speak of it again. Got engaged the year after to a very strict religious girl, Edith I think she was called, which rather put paid to my ideas of renewing things. Damned unsportsmanlike I must say, to ruin me for women and then leave me high and dry, don’t you think?” 

“I’m sure you could still have gotten married if you wanted.” Freddie pointed out. 

“Oh, I’m sure you’re right.” The Captain agreed. “The point was that the moment he touched me, I knew I’d never want that. And it’d be very unkind to let a girl get attached to someone who could never want them back, so I just didn’t. Which is a lot easier than I thought, it turns out. I don’t think I really appeal to women.” 

“And the other one?” Freddie inched toward him, wrapping his well-formed limbs around the Captain’s body like a limpet, once again submerging him in sweet bliss.

“Robert was a librarian. Probably a little older than me than I am of you. Distinguished sort. We were together for two years, and then in ‘32 he moved away. We wrote each other but it sort of sputtered out, whatever it was we had. Last I heard of him he had joined the communist party and left to fight in the Spanish Civil War.” 

“You’ve been alone for a long time then.” Freddie said, with a hint of concern to his voice, bless him. “Not sure I like thinking of you all alone, for all this time.”

“Then think of me now, very happy and with you.” He ran a thumb along Freddie’s lips, feeling them twist into a smile just as he did. “And to answer your question, I certainly think so. Being able to do something like this, with any man, always feels marvelous to me. But with you? Incredible. Like nothing else on earth.” 

“This is special, isn’t it?” He asked, face crinkled with sincerity. The Captain loved his serious face. “I’m glad it isn’t just me who thinks so.”

His stomach did an unpleasant flip at the thought of- leading him on like that. They had only had a few days to iron everything out, so it shouldn’t have been surprising that Freddie would have his little insecurities about this thing that they had. 

“Freddie, this- you, are so very precious to me.” He said, curling around him in turn so that they were just one big tangle of clumsy affection. “And I think you understand that as much as I do, regardless of whatever experiences I might have had.” He paused. “But out of curiosity, have you ever…?”

“Well, I’ve fooled around with girls a bit, here and there.” Freddie admitted, burying his head into the Captain’s chest, one of his preferred places for it as it turned out. “Always found it underwhelming. Like everyone had been exaggerating sex as this huge part of adult life, worth sinning for and fighting wars over, and it just seemed so dull in actuality. I did suspect that I was a tad unusual, in all sorts of different ways but wondering is very different to actually trying something and seeing if you like it. And then back at the airfield, I just had this moment where I was like ‘ah, I see,’ and I did! So I kissed you.”

He inclined his head, reaching up to plant a kiss on the Captain’s chin and his chest rumbled appreciatively, like some kind of big, soppy cat. 

“But you didn’t even know I was- well! That’s a tad foolhardy don’t you think, putting yourself in danger like that? Not that it wasn’t, ahem, very brave.”

Freddie elbowed him. “Oh come off it, I know you too well to think you’d ever hurt me. Besides,” teeth nipped at the Captain’s neck, right where it joined the collarbone. “You always look at me funny. The moment I knew what I was feeling, I could see it mirrored right back at me in your eyes.” 

“I don’t look at you peculiarly!” The Captain insisted. “Do I?”

“You always look for just a second too long, and too tenderly.”

“Dear Lord.” The Captain flushed, cheeks heating up. How very dreadful to have never realised it. How dreadfully predatory it sounded. 

“I don’t think anyone who didn’t desperately want to see it would have.” He was reassured. “Besides, the fact that I noticed that sort of thing means that I was definitely looking at you an unusual amount.” 

He paused, gently thumbing at the captain’s slight frown. 

“Stop that! You’re not allowed to be melancholy on our special week, I won’t allow it!” 

He wriggled out of the Captain’s grasp, wrestling the Captain’s crumpled shirt with him and stood up, neatly pitching the shirt into the pond.

“Ah! You dreadful boy!” The Captain staggered to his feet, ignoring the loud protestations of his joints. Ducking down unexpectedly, he tackled Freddie, and they tumbled together into the pond. They submerged for a second in the unexpected shock of cold, welcome in the blazing heat of the day. Freddie breached the surface, spluttering indignantly. 

“You utter bastard! I’ve got algae in my hair!” He splashed after the Captain, who dove back under to avoid him. He paddled backwards until Freddie caught him, collapsing upon him and creating a great disturbance in the reeds. 

“Wait!” Freddie commanded him, and he froze. “Was that the car?” 

Without the overwhelming sounds of splashing, the Captain could make out distant voices from the direction of the house.

“Drat.” He looked down at the Captain. “Get your shirt on.” 

The Captain glanced around him, having totally forgotten about it. “I don’t know where it’s gone.”

“Fine. I like you better without it anyway.” He glanced back behind his shoulder. “S’pose I’ll go greet uncle Morris. You can grab our things.” He motioned to the abandoned picnic. 

“Ah, yes.” The Captain nodded, unable to entirely contain his disappointment. 

“One more thing.” Freddie lent in to kiss him, He gave him just a friendly little peck but it was enough still to send his heart doing flips. “We’ll finish this later.”

He walked off towards the house, the Captain watching him and the way his clothes hung off him, dripping wet and tantalising, until he passed out of sight. What a man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason, this was a very easy chapter to write, and not one that I actually intended to write at all but :p smooching is what the people want (and so do I) so smooching is what we're getting! 
> 
> Probs no update tomorrow night as I'll be at a festival but we'll see. As always I hope you enjoyed! And are as happy about the Captain being kissed as I am :p


	11. Better far to live and die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cap has his tv time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a short one, and i'm sorry for that- every time i set down to write i find myself having ideas for later chapters and then i get all caught up in writing those chapters instead. 
> 
> normal service will resume shortly! i've been v busy this week with my jobs and doing some renovations etc but hopefully they won't keep me too occupied to finish another chapter in the next few days!

The Captain was making himself sad again. Technically, the televisual entertainment was making him sad, but more effectively, it was him. Not even the presenter’s unseasonably handsome face could stir him from the narrative spun by the man onscreen, of his search across the continent to find any relatives still living, after being sent away to England on the Kindertransport. 

Needless to say, it was a particularly hard hitter. 

It fed the little voice in the back of his head that doubted whether they had truly won the war, done what they had set out to do. What he had set out to do anyhow. It was naive, he knew, to think such a way. But any poor kid waiting the war out to find that their parents had been gassed was a strike against his own record, a reminder that he and his country had not acted decisively enough to prevent such damning tragedy. 

Though he had to wonder who exactly watched such programming, anyway. The stories were vital, and they needed to be told and recorded for posterity, of course. But to tune in, week after week to feel such woes… Sometimes he wondered if all the viewers were just old fools of ghosts like him, bound deeply to that brief sliver of life, and death, that was all they had been permitted. 

The man, now wizened by the time past produced a photo from his pocket, and it was a recent picture, this one of the family he had built for himself anew, a living shout of victory against the oppressor. 

This was exactly the point at which Mike decided to slump himself down before the t.v. and change the channel. 

The Captain stood up straight, outraged by the sheer afrontery. 

“You put that channel back on at once!” He roared. “My God, sir! How dare you interrupt my time on the tv time!?”

Mike, not knowing, or seemingly caring what damage he did, flicked idly through the channels. 

“If I was alive, I’d give you what for!” He snarled, waving his stick in Mike’s face threateningly. 

“What?” Mike said, suddenly looking up, and for one hair raising second the Captain thought the impossible had happened.

“There’s no water coming out of the tap!” Shouted Alison from another room, before the Captain could even begin to think of something to say. 

Mike groaned, putting down the remote. “I’m coming.” He slumped from the sofa, with all the grace of an animated sandbag. 

“Good riddance!” The Captain scowled at the figure of him disappearing through the doorway.

He tutted disapprovingly. What a to do- there had been half of the program left to watch, which he might very well never see now. The Captain shook his head, convinced that the score being played by the television set was familiar… very familiar, in fact. Was it- 

He turned around, regarding the tv with a new intensity, to the men on screen singing ‘Pour, O pour the Pirate Sherry’, which was what the tune was, unmistakably. Unless he was mistaken, it was a production of the Pirates of Penzance!

There was a sound outside in the corridor- barely pulling himself away from the television set, the Captain poked his head around the door to see Robin creeping down it, laughing to himself. 

“Robin!” The Captain demanded his attention. Sure enough, Robin turned round. 

Robin made some noise of engagement, turning towards him. 

“What is?” He asked, looking none too happy for being disturbed. 

“I’ve something in here I think the others would quite enjoy. Fetch them for me, would you?” 

Robin looked unconvinced. “Uhhh...” 

“You’ll like it, I promise. Lot of fun.” 

Alison walked out of the other door, striding down the hall like a woman possessed. 

“Boo!” Robin jumped out at her, to which she hurried past him without so much as a backward glance. 

“That one no count!” He called after her as she disappeared through the hallway. He sagged slightly. “Fine.” He humphed. “Robin get the others.” 

“Thank you, Robin.” The Captain said, though Robin didn’t seem to take notice. 

No matter. The Captain hurried back to the tv, just as the next song began. It brought back so many old memories. It seemed he would be enjoying himself this afternoon after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading, i really really appreciate it. be prepared for more pirates of penzance related shenanigans, but first, more flashbacks!
> 
> love ya all for sticking this out with me,, have a nice day now!


	12. Help.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Freddie and the Captain's last moments together at home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Heavy chapter. This is where our period typical homophobia makes its appearance, so those who wish to avoid this are welcome to.

The Captain lay upon his bed, reading a book. Except, the bed was not truly his, and he could say was reading the book about as much as he could say he was skiing. His attention had only briefly flickered between the pages, and he had been on the same page for at least half an hour now. It had not been his sort of thing really- no doubt somebody a few generations ago had installed it within the house and for good reason. As accounts of the Crimean war went, this was less an recounting and more an inventory. It was much like reading an old shopping list. 

A gentle breeze floated through the open window, bringing with it the sound of an engine igniting somewhere on the ground, the easy purr of Morris Tapling’s sedan. Then there was stomping on the landing, and the door flew open.

“Freddie.” He snapped the book shut, depositing it on the bedside table. 

“Hullo old man.” He had a sort of rakish grin on his face, the sort that was designed to get foolish girls into trouble, or in this case, particularly foolish old men. “They’ve gone for lunch, so the place is ours.” 

“The way you talk to me, anyone’d think I was sixty.” The Captain complained, as Freddie planted himself at the end of the bed, lying across it in a rather carefree mess. He had a dreadful habit of sprawling across whatever surface was closest to him. Wild thing he was.

“You practically are.”

“Thirty-five isn’t even close to sixty, Fred. I don’t rate your maths much.” 

“What can I say? You look old.” He fiddled with a little piece of string tied around his finger. “It’s the mustache, hides too much of your face.” 

“Charming.” The Captain replied, dripping with friendly condescension. 

“Shush you, you look good! You know I think so. Just a little- refined- is all.” He blinked. “No, I’m in an odd mood. Pay me no attention.” 

“I know.” He reached over, offering Freddie a hand, which he took. Then he pulled him up so that they lay side by side. 

He smiled wryly. “If I knew all this was ahead of me I think I’d have taken a while longer to sign on with the RAF.” 

“You shouldn’t think like that, you’ll make yourself upset. I’m sure you’ll see quite enough of me. More than you want to, even.”

“See more than I want? Of you? Impossible.” His hair fell about his face, against the pillow, and the Captain only stared, transfixed. 

“What about when I really do turn sixty? I’m sure you’ll really have had all you can want of me by then.”

“You know, you’d think that, but I’ll be getting old then too, and I think I ought to have someone a little older around as a point of comparison. To make me feel better about being fifty one, which I’m sure is a repulsive age to be.” 

The Captain held firmly to the hand that clung to his. “You really are too much, Freddie.” He brought it to his mouth, pressing a kiss to each knuckle. 

“I thought you didn’t mind my teasing.” 

“I’d be a sad man if I couldn’t laugh at myself every now and then, but you, sir, are a menace! Completely untenable! You’re lucky I like you so much.” 

“I am.” Freddie agreed, pressing in for a kiss, and the Captain felt all the yearning in his chest answered in a breath. It made his insides melt. 

The Captain barely stifled a moan as Freddie shifted closer to him, a leg pressing up between his own. 

Freddie’s breath hitched and he pulled away, breath ragged. 

“God, I’m going to miss this.” He breathed reverently. 

“Mmm.” Said the Captain, and kissed the words off his lips. He was going to miss this too, and too damn much by far. He had determined to put the thought to the back of his mind, to bother him in due time. Which it would, and he would dwell on it at length. Probably for as long as it took for the two of them to see each other again, but not right now. He had to be strong and set a good example, to make it as straightforward for Freddie as it could be. The first time was meant to be the hardest. It had never seemed to get any easier for the Captain. His skin always felt so cold when it wasn’t being touched. 

“You’ll have to write lots.” He continued, pulling out of their damning kisses to wax lyrical. The shadow of cloud pulled across the sky outside, dimming the light, and then Freddie was the only radiant thing in the room. “Every moment you can, with any little scraps of paper you can find, just to keep my heart beating.”

“I will. Whenever I can.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.” 

Freddie wrapped his arms around his neck. He kissed him like the world was about to end, all fervour and tongue and hands so tight they were clenched against his skin, 

Outside a noise sounded.

“Fred, have you-” 

The door swung open, and the Captain looked up a second too late. 

“Cyril! What on earth?"

The Captain stared at Cyril, and Cyril stared at Freddie, frozen in place like a deer in the headlights. Each of them stayed trapped in that second, poised for whoever made the first move. The Captain had had so many nightmares like this; or that began like this anyway. Was he dreaming this? All of this? Could he wake up soon, sit up in a cold sweat before the dawn and have it all put away back into his mind before breakfast? 

"I thought you left with the others." Freddie announced, which as an opening line seemed as much akin to an open admission of guilt that anything that was not a confession could be. 

Cyril stood in the doorway like a scarecrow made of needles. "I came back for my wallet." He said, before blinking the trance out of his eyes. From there it took him about seven seconds to spiral from shock to disbelief to anger. He stepped forward, still slow, but on a trajectory that would not tolerate hindrance. He took the poker from the fireplace holding it how he thought a sword was held, which was to say wrong, but little less dangerous. 

He waved the poker in the Captain's face. "Get up. Now."

The Captain raised his hands, getting up slowly. “There’s no need for that.” He said, as if he was calm. 

“Damn you! Stand there.” He beckoned Freddie. “It’s okay, Fred. The police will deal with this.” 

“Don’t call them, Cyril, please. We can talk about this.” He stood up hastily, clothes and hair still rumpled. 

 

 

“You won’t have to say anything, I’ll handle it all.” The poker didn’t waver in his hand. “It’s all going to be okay. Whatever this- man- has been doing to you, it stops now.” 

“But he didn’t do anything wrong!” Freddie protested. Cyril turned to him, as he became the object of his full attention.

“What on earth are you talking about? I saw what was going on!” 

“You didn’t see anything, you’ve got it all wrong. We were just…” He glanced desperately at the Captain, who had already run out of words and just stood there dumbstruck. “...hugging.” He finished lamely, refusing to meet his brother’s eyes. 

“Hugging.” Cyril repeated. 

“Yes. And maybe I got a little carried away with it, but that’s not something to send someone to prison for, is it?” 

Freddie’s optimism did not seem to touch his brother’s heart. Cyril squinted at him, from lack of light, or his own revulsion. “So.” He said slowly. “You expect me to believe he wasn’t trying to do something to you? You don’t need to protect him Fred, you’re not beholden to him. Don’t pretend you wanted this.”

Freddie’s hands tightened, digging deep red marks into the palms of his hands.

“Would it be so terrible if I did? To want to hold someone else in your arms. That isn’t wrong, is it?”

Cyril swivelled on the spot, his would be sword hand dropping. The Captain watched him as he bent down, arched over his brother like a bird of prey.

“What on earth are you talking about?” He snarled. “Wrong? You know it’s wrong, don’t you? Deep down, in here!” he jabbed a finger at Freddie’s half exposed chest. “How did you let yourself get like this?” The hand curled around Freddie’s shirt collar, dragging him forward.

“I’ve always been like this.” Freddie admitted faintly, biting down on his lip. 

“Like hell you are. Give me a straight answer Fred, ‘cause I know you too well to believe that you’ve always been so twisted.” 

Freddie did not waver, sitting as rigid as stone. “I have.” 

The hand released him. “Fine.” Cyril glanced sharply at the Captain, as he stood there, locked out from this exchange between the two brothers. “We’ll see what mother has to say about all this.” 

Freddie stood up, to his full height, grabbing Cyril’s hand before he could leave. “And break her heart? Cyril, she has nothing to do with this!” 

Cyril stared him down, fury and the full inch of height he had over his brother lending him a cold absolution. 

Freddie crinkled. “Look, we can take care of this ourselves, can’t we? I’ll co-operate, I’ll do whatever, just don’t get anyone else involved. Please?” 

Cyril nodded to himself, his anger abating into a sort of grim satisfaction. “Okay. And all of this will stop now, you swear?”

“I do.” Freddie trembled. 

“Good man.” Cyril held out a hand and Freddie shook it. An absurdly formal gesture after all that had happened. It made the Captain feel sick, so sick to his stomach to see it, and yet he did nothing. He could not even shift his tongue. 

“I’m not leaving you here with him, so you’ll come to lunch with me, and when we have a moment we’ll see about getting you some help. Okay, Fred?”

“Perfect.” Freddie parroted back with all the pallor of a corpse, and a real testament to Cyril’s wilful blindness that he managed to overlook it. 

“I’ll just get my wallet.” 

Cyril turned to the door. Freddie waved him away weakly. 

“I just have to get my jumper.” He called after his brother.

“Be quick about it.” Cyril called back, already now in a hurry to find his keys. 

Freddie reached forward, grabbing the Captain’s jumper off the bed. “You should leave now.” He said simply. “I’ll tell the family you were called away on business.” 

Then he disappeared away, leaving the Captain frozen already in a time and space he could never quite return to. He lay down very slowly on the bed, before his legs could give way underneath him. His head sank down into the mattress, as it consumed him. 

It would be the last time they saw each other before the war began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To those of us that find themselves in similar situations to this- remember that the world is strong, but you are stronger, and you will persist. The world will be better for you having endured in it. 
> 
> Also remember that this will not end sadly. I've no intention of leaving you all in this sad place- this fic has a happy ending! i pwomise. 
> 
> Thanks to you all for reading. And sorry this chapter took a while as well! Writing it made me too sad :'0 but soon we will enter a new phase in Freddie and the Captain's history. Have a nice day!


	13. A State of War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> War is declared. The Captain grounds himself to a new hope and a new reality.

_ "This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final Note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. _

 

_ I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany." _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


The Captain knew that speech off by heart. It had played through his mind, from that first earth shattering moment that he heard it. The declaration marked the end of something, that blustery September day. There was no question that the summer was over, as the movement of his life and work shuddered into a frenzy. It was an overture to the symphony of War. 

 

He had known since the day that war was declared. That with it began the most important era of his life. This would be his significance. 

 

Three days after he received his first letter. 

 

_ ‘Dearest,’ _ it read. 

 

_ ‘Apologies for the delay. Life has had me so caught up. RAF College is a hell of a thing.They mean to keep me here several months more- even with a war just beginning!!! As everyone’s so eager to tell me, if we let standards slip every time war was declared the air force would be buggered before you know it. I do understand. I just don’t like it. And I reserve the right to complain about it!  _

 

_ Anyway, my test was in an Avro 621 Tutor- do you remember her? The same plane (well not the very same) as the one I took you up in! Had a rolicking time in it, only for them to grade me ‘Above Average’. Think I deserve more than that, at least an exclamation mark, but oh well. Now they have us in North American Harvards, though the lot that came after us get the Miles Master! I’d certainly like to try one of those out, but I digress. They’ll be nothing to the real fighter planes when we get em! We’re to have Hurricanes, not the new Spits but I’m not upset about it, though some of the other chaps were. I’ll so love to have one of my own it doesn’t bear thinking about. But I’m sure you aren’t only interested in the planes, if you are at all. I am well as you have no doubt surmised. Communications have broken down between me and Cyril, which is my fault because I lost my temper with him, but he hasn’t told anyone about why so I don’t think he will. It is fine by me- better to lose a brother than a brother, two sisters and a mother eh? Or to lose you.  _

 

_ I think of you. I would ask if perhaps we could meet soon, but this is probably a bad time. Do think about it though if you have any time at all. I’ll be interested to hear how you are! Busy as anything I imagine at the moment. Preparing for action? I wish you all the luck in the world. Don’t get ahead of yourself though, if you’ve finished off the war before I even get a look at my own fighter I shall be upset!  _

 

_ Do write back and tell me how you are, as soon as you can. I would write more but Emsleigh keeps trying to peek at my letter and I do want to get it sent before the post is collected.  _

 

_ All my love, _

 

_ FDC.’ _

 

The Captain had read it through, then folded it up neatly and stowed it in his breast pocket. Then he took it out again, and read it over several more times, tracing the light indents on the page with his finger. Of course he kept it secret, away from prying eyes, but every so often when he had a second of respite he would hold it in his hand, running his thumb over the crisp paper. It was exactly what he had been hoping for, Freddie through and through. It could have done being a little longer, but he knew he would not have been satisfied with a letter of any length, to be truthful.

 

He’d always have wanted more. He always did.

 

Even if it was short, reading it did fill him warmth and relief. It felt more likely to the Captain that Freddie had just put off writing, rather than been afraid to, and that did not bother him. He preferred it to the alternative. There was still something there between them, thank God. It reminded him that he was alive. 

 

He wrote back that night. 

 

_ Freddie, _

 

_ I am glad to know that you are well, and that training is going well. I think we would all be very lucky if the war were to end before you got a shot at them- I’m sure your chance will come soon enough. We are being moved to London to man the new searchlights, and- _

 

No, that was too much information, they might hold his letter for that. He scribbled out the last line with his pen so that it could not be read. 

 

_ I will be in London very soon.  _ He wrote instead.  _ If they’ll let you out for a day or so, you might come and see me? _

 

No, that sounded too desperate. He scribbled that out too.  _ I suppose you could visit me sometime? _ No, too standoffish. Hmm. 

 

_ I will be there for the foreseeable future and would like to see you again soon. Life feels lonely without you nearby.  _

 

Now that definitely came through as desperate but he was running out of paper. 

 

_ My fondest feelings to you. You are on my mind always.  _

 

Then he signed it. 

 

It was a dreadful letter! A dreadful one! The writing was neat, if a little shaky from his nerves, but the black smudges were not, and it was sad and underwhelming! Absolutely dreadful. The Captain had always been horrible at writing correspondence. Still, he sealed the envelope, and wrote upon it Freddie’s new address- RAF College. 

 

He wondered what it was like up there. He had gotten into the habit of worrying over every potential detail of Freddie’s life, and it was a habit that was as utterly stupid as it was pointless. No amount of fretting could change any part of the world outside of his line of sight. Still, so far away there had been nothing else he could do. It had seemed too risky to pen a letter of his own volition when he did not know where they stood anymore. Not after the way they had parted. Some stilted, clumsy letter out of the blue would probably have done more harm than good. He’d end up saying the wrong thing, and then everything would have spiralled from there.

 

The Captain had missed him too much. Oh dearest boy. 

 

That night he made his way down to the mailroom, a light still on behind closed doors. Inside, Camberwick was burning the midnight oil.

 

He stood and saluted as the Captain came through the door. “Sir!” He said, somewhat tiredly, but still with a glow of energy to him. That was what his job required of him. 

 

“At ease. Could you put this with the officers mail?” He withdrew the letter he had written from his pocket, a little reluctantly. He wished he had written something better. He wanted to get it sent off as soon as possible, so he could not rethink. 

 

“Of course.” Camberwick took the envelope from his hand, tucking it into a little enclave on the shelf. “How’s your friend in the RAF, sir?”

 

“What?” The Captain blustered, taken aback. 

 

“Letter came through for you a few days ago with an RAF return address. Wasn’t mislaid was it?” 

 

“No, of course not. He’s fine, so far as I can tell. Eager to fight.” 

 

Camberwick nodded sagely. “Fiery lot, pilots. Always have to be in the thick of it.” 

 

“I daresay so.” He agreed, just a tad tersely. “Well, I’ll be seeing you Camberwick. Don’t go on later than you have to.” 

 

He left, feeling just perceptibly unsettled. The chill air flowed around him, eager to inform him that it had just discovered that autumn was there now. A nagging worry ate at him that Camberwick knew too much. And it was unlikely, really. There was a precedent for reading and censoring military mail, but it would surely be uneconomic to send the mail and only then read it. 

 

Freddie’s letter didn’t look like it had been tampered with. He hoped his own modest submission would get to say the same. 

 

He could try to get a hold of a few honour envelopes? That could be done. No, to be sent regularly sending green envelopes to someone else in the service, someone unrelated to him would raise more suspicion than anything else if anyone noticed. That would look like one of two things, and he hated the idea of being penalised for spying more than he did for homosexuality. Which was saying something. 

 

He had walked out to the edge of the base, walking close to the boundary, the cold dragging at his exposed face and hands. The reality of what he was engaging himself with was beginning to sink in. If they were found out the consequences would be worse than these agonising months alone. 

 

He took the letter out of his pocket, too attached to it already. He couldn’t help it. He longed to touch what had been touched by those hands. By that man. 

 

“Oh God, Freddie.” He whispered to it, clutched tight to his chest. “We’re doing a dangerous thing.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Change from the format, but I was an hour early to work and locked out, so I wrote this and I figured I'd just post it rather than wait until I'd finished the next chapter. And hey, I can deviate from the form if I want to! And I do, as it happens. Thus begins arc 2 in this fic! So I daresay it's a precedent of what's to come. We may have more epistolary segments in the fic, so I have my fingers crossed- I'm worse at writing letters than the Captain is himself! Makes me too damn anxious. So I'm hoping that writing someone else's letters will be easier!
> 
>  
> 
> Honour envelopes, colloquially known as green envelopes (since they were green) were envelopes for personal mail, which supposedly wouldn't be read by the censors. They were more popularly used in WW1 but they continued to be used afterwards. 
> 
> I hope you have enjoyed this little snippet.


	14. A Night in London

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Captain has a rendez-vous with a certain gentleman...

The Captain did not like London. He certainly did not love it, as so many people declared too. It was too grubby and mismatched for his tastes. It was nothing against the people; no sort of judgement about them. He just found the place itself oppressive. The blackened, murky waters of the Thames brought him no joy as another river might, and the place retained no architectural style for long enough for him to be able to accustom himself to it. It was also far too public and populated for meetings to be sufficiently private. Which was why he had arranged to meet in this small, unremarkable park, and at this hour, which was an unreasonable one. 

He sat on a bench, looking over what was meant to be a lake, where the silhouettes of ducks and geese drifted idly over the water. When the sun had begun to set, he had seen what looked to be a terrapin sitting on a floating tree branch. That, or possibly an alligator. But that possibility seemed to be a fairly slim one. 

The Captain hoped wholeheartedly that no grisly murders were to be committed in the neighbourhood tonight, as sitting alone on a bench for several hours in the night seemed to fit perfectly into the schedule of a serial murderer and he would hate to either be murdered or framed for it.

There was a rustling in the undergrowth behind him, which was probably just a goose, in fact, it had been a goose the last thirty times he had turned around. Then a hand came to rest on the Captain’s shoulder.

“That is you, isn’t it?” A familiar voice asked. 

“Bad way to go about finding out. What if it wasn’t?” The humour was a good mask for the rush of emotions that shuddered through him at that touch, like he had been flipped upside down, and all the blood was rushing to his head. His own cold hand wrapped slowly around the one on his shoulder, feeling shocking warmth through his fingers all of a sudden. 

Freddie sat down on the bench next to him. 

“Dreadful place to meet, isn’t it? I keep thinking each tree is a killer waiting in the dark.”

“Not the sort of place people go when it’s dark.”

“Aaaaaaah! I get it. And if there is anyone lurking with a knife in the dark, I daresay we could give him a good thrashing between us eh?”

“I think so.” The Captain said, faltering. They were talking far too… normally. It felt off,

“Ah… Long time no see isn’t it, old man?” Freddie said hesitantly, his nerves coming through. It made the Captain happier not to be the only one anxious about it. “Should we talk about whatever it is we’re doing?”

“I think so.” The Captain nodded.

“Do you think we can still be together? Do you… still want me?”

“I- what? Yes! Of course I do. Isn’t it obvious?” His hand brushed against Freddie’s neck, who shuddered into it, for it had been too long to miss something that felt so right. 

“I had a lot of time to make myself anxious on the train here.” He admitted. “But you do think we could do this, with a war going on? I wouldn’t blame you if you weren’t prepared to really do this.”

“I’d like to try.” The Captain found that the words came a lot more easily now. “If you’ll have me.”

“Do I look like I wouldn’t?” 

“Just offering you an out. You’re allowed one too, you know. Any position is strategically doubtful if you haven’t accounted for a potential retreat.” 

“Yes, sir.” Freddie stuck his tongue out, mocking him but in a way that made his insides tie themselves into knots. 

“Well, excellent.” The Captain nodded fervently, trying to distract himself from how red his face must have gotten already. “And what happened between you and Cyril? Is he a danger to you?”

“I didn’t want to talk about it in my letter. We- ah… I stopped going to the correctional therapist he found for me. I told him I was worried about higher ups finding out but I think he saw right through me. We should be okay if we’re careful though. There’s not much he can do about us now that there’s a war on, eh? He wouldn’t want to waste anyone’s time.” 

The Captain took Freddie’s hand in his. It would have been a painful situation for anyone. “I’m so sorry, Fred.”

“He’ll get used to the idea in time, I’m sure. But I’m not sure I can forgive him for ruining our perfect week. I just- I get so little time with you, and I don’t ask for much! But happiness is more than people like us get to demand, eh?”

“Damned unsporting of the powers that be.” The Captain agreed. “To deny us this much. But it shan’t stop us.” 

“Came close to stopping me.” Freddie squeezed his hand, gazing wistfully away into the rippling silhouette of the lake. “I had so much trouble writing to you. I tried it a thousand times. It was just so hard to know what to say. I worried so much.”

“You needn’t have. You know you don’t have anything to fear from me, don’t you Fred?” 

Freddie looked at him, moist eyed. 

“I was just worried, what with everything that happened. That you wouldn’t care for me, anymore. I’d be happier not knowing that.” He breathed out slowly. “And I was afraid of what we are.” 

The Captain could not fight the urge anymore. He cradled Freddie in his arms, letting him rest his head against the crook of his neck. 

“Oh dearest boy, dearest boy.” He uttered, with an air of strangulation. For a lack of words, he expressed himself in a different way, kissing the top of Freddie’s head gently. “Dearest.” 

“You’re sure you still like me? After I left you high and dry all this time?” Freddie’s breath caught on the wind, faint and reedy. 

“Of course,” the Captain smoothed a hand over the side of his lover’s face as he had wanted to do for so long. “You won’t get rid of me so easily. Unless you want to.” He quickly amended. 

“Please don’t go.” 

“I’m right here.” The Captain affirmed, holding him as tightly as he dared. “And I won’t treat you badly, I promise. I’m not just going to drop you out of the blue. I’m more constant than that.” 

Freddie looked up at him, and gave him a watery smile. “I’ve gotten outrageously soppy haven’t I? Just look at me. What a fucking pansy eh?” 

“Good thing we’re both soppy fools or you’d have to be embarrassed.” 

“Oh we are, are we? I could have sworn I was the only one weeping pitifully around here.” Freddie gave him an arch look. “You just want to make me feel better don’t you? You cad.”

“Now that’s not fair is it? I-” 

The Captain shut up when Freddie kissed him, with such force it nearly sent him over the edge of the bench. They grabbed onto each other tighter, engaging in a dramatic battle together against all else that comprised reality. The force of gravity, the need to breathe, the inclination to behave rationally all went out of the window the moment their mouths touched, and the Captain gasped into sweet surrender. It defied all belief. With every stolen breath his heart was in flames, even as they lost stability and fell off the bench, rolling across the grass together. Freddie broke away, breathing heavily and began to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” The Captain asked when he recovered his breath.

“I have no idea!” Freddie chuckled. “But it’s hilarious!”

He didn’t understand. He did not think though, that he was meant to. Just seeing Freddie a little cheerier steadied his heart. He hated to see him upset.

A dog barked in the distance, reminding the both of them that the rest of the world could not be shut out too long. 

“We should go somewhere.” The Captain suggested. “I found us someplace to stay, just for the night, if you’d like to stay with me.”

Freddie shot him a look, and elbowed him playfully in the ribs. “Awfully forward of you, don’t you think? I only just got here.” 

“You know I don’t mean it like that.”

“Oh, don’t you now?” 

The Captain gave him a disapproving look. “You are a pest.” 

“I like to think of myself as a lovable rogue.” 

“And you can find your own damn lodgings if mine aren’t good enough.” He scoffed sharply. “I only wanted to go somewhere less exposed to talk now we’ve met up.” 

“I know darling, I was just teasing you.” Freddie kissed the side of his head and the Captain’s scowl lessened. “Of course I want to spend the night with you. Just lead the way.”

The two of them left the park, walking down the darkened streets to the place where the Captain was leading them. A breeze blew between the trees that grew beside the road, small reminders of how deep the artifice of the urban sprawl lay.

“Since when do you call me darling anyway?” He asked quietly as they turned a corner, onto another mercifully deserted street.

“I just wanted to, really. Too much, is it?” 

“I don’t mind.” The Captain admitted. It felt very nice to be someone’s darling. Emboldened, he reached out and took Freddie’s hand, clutching eagerly to it as they walked down the street together. 

“Nobody’s around to see.” He added. “It’s nice to be able to do this in public.”

“It is.” Freddie agreed. “Wish we could do things like this normally.” The Captain did to. Sometimes though, it was simply not worth the hardship of wanting. Easier to let things be out of reach. 

“Is this place we’re staying close now?” He continued, still glancing around him cautiously. 

“Very close.” 

“Private?” 

“Should be. It’s an attic room.” 

Freddie nodded, though it did not stop him keeping a very watchful eye on their surroundings in a way that doubtless would look incredibly suspicious to anyone who did happen to see them. 

“Well. Here it is.” 

The two of them stood outside an old terraced house, its brickwork aged and a tad crumbly. It stood proudly though, the front framed by several hanging baskets and window boxes of flowers. The two of them let go of each other’s hands before anyone came to the door. The landlady was a kind-faced woman in her late fifties, who had had the good fortune to marry a man whose surname suited her perfectly. All four foot six inches of Mrs Short greeted them both with a welcoming gesture and a look of visible confusion. 

“You didn’t tell me there’d be two of you.” She worried when they were both through the door. “I’d have prepared one of the other rooms. I’m afraid there’s only one bed in this one.” 

The Captain coughed, embarrassed. He hadn’t been thinking straight, clearly. When asked, he had only been thinking about the price. 

“I’m sure we can make do.” 

Mrs Short nodded doubtfully. “I suppose you can always go top and tails. Do knock on my door if there’s anything you need, like some extra pillows.” 

Freddie nodded, and gave her a charming enough smile to send her away in a sort of satisfied daze. The attic room was about as large as could have been expected, cozy but with low ceilings, with cross-beams stationed at all the best places to blip someone unexpectedly on the head if they got up during the night. The Captain’s small case had already been left to the side of the bed, which was of a generous enough size for one person, but not nearly enough for two. 

“Cozy.” Said Freddie, locking the door behind him.

Standing there in the dim light, the Captain could finally look at him. He looked just as he remembered him, yet at the same time, impossibly different. He looked like the same person in a very different silhouette to the one he had occupied before. Still wearing civilian clothes, some semblance of normality in the Captain’s war driven world. But at the same time, he had a more gaunt look to him, a sharpness that could only be emotional, a different aura to the one he’d had before, so to speak. Looking at him was a different emotion. That wasn’t the shocking part. 

“Dear Lord.” He said grimly. “What on earth happened to your hair?” 

Freddie touched at his head, self-consciously. “Mandatory haircut. I was a little outside regulation.” 

“Of course.” The Captain grimaced. He understood why, but there was a part of him that despaired that they chose to take it so short. He was sure that the RAF would do fine by his Fred, and that he made a very fine serviceman, but the Captain had never needed him to look like a soldier. There was something so sacred about him. Something he had noticed the very first time he had properly looked at him. Still untouched by many of the hard truths that ate at the world’s edges. The Captain only wished he could stay that way. That life would be kind to him. 

“It will grow back.” He patted the Captain on the arm, a serious effort to console him. “You’ll like it again. And I’m still handsome, aren’t I?”

The Captain nodded with alacrity. “Certainly. Beautiful boy.” 

That at least elicited a smile, that filled the Captain with a wave of relief that not even the return of his lost hair would have granted. It made him look like himself again. 

“You know, you look very good in uniform.” Freddie commented approvingly and the Captain almost flushed.

“Make the most of the novelty. I think you’ll get very used to seeing me in uniform.” 

“Then I look forward to it.” Freddie grinned cheekily. Seized by a sudden mad glint in his eye, he picked the Captain up, which was needless to say quite a shock to the Captain and carried him over, dropping him on the bed. 

“Ahhh- watch the bedsprings, Freddie.” 

Freddie leaned in, biting his top lip. “No.” He said. “Tonight we don’t care about anything.”

The Captain looked up at him, hair halo-ed by the faint light, and fell into the eyes of love. 

“Whatever you want.” He said, and surrendered himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Evening out the chapter numbers a little! 
> 
> I wanted to get this published before I go on hols, as I do not know how reliably I will have wifi. I will post whatever I write on holiday when I get the chance or possibly even after I get back. Maybe several chapters at once! Who knows...
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this little parting gift, and I will be back in two weeks, if not sooner! Have a lovely day!


	15. It's the Word that you've Heard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Ghosts embark on a journey of musical discovery.

As the credits scrolled down the screen for the Pirates of Penzance, the Captain observed with some satisfaction how his unconventional little band seemed glued to the screen. 

“Well now.” He said, unreasonably proud of himself. “How did you all like that?”

“I do love a good musical!” Pat agreed, and he did look like he loved it. The Captain would say this for him- the man had good taste. 

“I thought it was very jolly!” Kitty agreed. “Some of the pirates were very dashing~”

“Well it’s not exactly ‘what Lola wants’...” Julian condescended, leaning on the windowsill airily. 

“And thank God for that, I’m sure.” The Captain glared at him, tapping his stick against the side of his leg. 

Pat gave him the disappointed look of a father, albeit a father in rather short shorts, which was not something the Captain ever remembered his own father sporting. Nonetheless it was slightly disconcerting. 

“Well now Captain, we all have our own favourite musicals. I myself think Grease is the word!” He grinned, making the arrow in his neck quiver slightly. The Captain tried not to look at it. 

Mary gave him an odd look. “No, grease be a substance, yous be wanting to clean that up.” 

The TV seemed to think that then was the best time to intervene. “That was the Pirates of Penzance there, an old classic to start off our week of musicals!” The announcer trilled. “Stay tuned for more tonight, where we’ll be back after the break with The Sound of Music!”

“There be more of the singing people?” Mary looked up expectantly. 

“Oh not the sound of music!” Alison announced loudly from behind them, startling the captain to his feet and halfway out of his wits.

“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing, sneaking up on us like that?” He waved his stick in the air with what he expected was the natural, commanding air of a leader. 

“I’ve been here for like, half an hour, come on!” Alison retorted. “You should be harder to surprise.” 

“Well I wasn’t surprised! That was just a warning not to try it! Or else-” 

“Or what? You’re going to start singing again?”

“I- yes!” He puffed out his chest, preparing to break into his staple anthem. “I--- am the very model of a-” 

“Oooh! Are we singing along?” Kitty bounced up and down excitedly, hyperactive as a child. “I should like to sing too!” 

Alison held a finger up threateningly. “Hey! if you’re going to have a sing along, you’ll do it to a better musical!”

“But there’s already one on!” Said Humphrey’s head, tucked halfway down the side of the sofa. “Can someone put me the right way round to watch it?” The Captain reached over and rather half heartedly leant his head against the sofa’s lumpy armrest. 

“So choose another!” Alison insisted. She pulled a drawer out of a nearby bureaux which differed from all of the others in the house because mike had made it from something called a ‘flat pack’ and it only had half the requisite drawer handles. “We’ve got Chicago, Grease, Les Miserables, Lion King and I swear we have Bugsy Malone somewhere.”

“Robin see musical once. Called Uuuuuuargh aheeuh.” He made some deeply complex mime with his hands which the Captain could assume was also part of the title. “Very uuuhhhhh- conceptual piece. Challenge to the form.”

“Robin mate, the form wasn’t invented yet!”

Robin shook his head confidently. “Format of musical very stratified in Robin times. Very, nuanced.”

“Don’t… think I have that one.” Alison checked her dvd drawer forlornly. “Nah.”

“We could watch… The Pound of Music.” Julian leered from the windowsill. 

“We’re not watching pornography!” Alison retorted. 

Julian waved a hand dismissively. “Oh it’s not pornography, think of it as… an erotic reimagining. Makes the bit with the nuns a lot more…” He made a nonspecific yet still inexplicably horny hand gesture. “interesting.” 

A chorus of groans resounded through the room, like a choir dedicated only to mild revulsion. 

“Alright.” Alison stated decisively. “We’re not having this conversation anymore. Humphrey! Pick a number between one and five.” 

“Oh!” Humphrey ‘s eyes widened, gratified and somewhat taken aback by the attention. “One! No, five, no, one!” 

“One it is.” Alison picked out a DVD case from the drawer. “Grease- no complaining!” 

There was no complaining, mainly because the vast majority of them didn’t know what she was talking about.

The Captain leaned over Pat awkwardly. “This… Grease we’re watching, what is it exactly?”

“Only the best musical of all time.” Pat grinned conspiratorially. Also an odd look on him. He was really making a day of it. “You’ve missed a lot of culture since you’ve been dead. Prepare to be educated!” 

As Alison finished wrangling the dvd a rather ugly cartoon appeared onscreen, set to music. It certainly seemed that the world had moved on from his time, though to be honest he couldn’t quite understand how it compared to the glib humour of Gilbert and Sullivan. There was a young woman with bad hair- so far as he understood hair- applying makeup in the mirror. 

“I’m not sure I quite get this, Pat.” 

“A girl with any class wouldn’t wear nearly that much makeup!” Fanny agreed shrilly from somewhere behind them. Funny, the Captain had completely forgotten she was there.

“It’s only the opening credits!” Pat insisted, his face reddening.

“Come on guys, give it a chance! You’ll enjoy it! Look, it’s starting for real now.” 

The Captain decided that he would give it a chance. Maybe, just maybe it would make life after the forties seem less surreal than it felt now. At the very least, he ought to give it a shot. He should never have let himself become so reticent. A pity it was what dying did to them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's another one after that!
> 
> Enjoy chaps, sorry for delay I have been snowed under by happenstance and laid upon something insane by work. Need to try to catch up with my life now! Enjoy tonight's chapters and thank you so much for coming back to read this :'3 I'm so lucky to have y'all incredible readers


	16. Freddie's Posting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Captain receives a rather unexpected phone call.

The Captain could have said that everything slotted into place then, a rhythm between the two of them. That would have been entirely untrue, though. The truth was that their relations injected a degree of chaos into his life, stunted and irregular enough to leave him constantly on the edge of his seat, caught up in the excitement of it all. Freddie wrote with a dizzying sort of irregularity and unpredictability that made the Captain feel as if they were upon the very cusp of something beyond belief.

Sometimes the letters were short.

"Hello darling,

Have you seen the weather today? A lot worse up there in the clouds. Have been doing a lot of I.F. and don't care for it at all. Would rather risk my life in a dogfight than die tangled up in a ship's rigging over the channel because I couldn't see the damn thing 50 feet ahead of me. Dreadful business!!!!

Yours ‘til my (seemingly imminent) death,

F.D.C"

Yet the shorter ones were often punctuated with longer follow ups, sometimes as little as a day between them.

"Hello again old man,

Am in less of a mood than on thurs. I.F. as I did not explain is instrument flying, which is to say flying while entirely reliant on your instruments because of low visibility. Jolly hard and quite unnerving! Still, I have not come a cropper, so that's all water under the practically invisible bridge. Thank you for the letter you sent detailing the many managerial foibles engaged in by the Navy during the Great War. I told Bonham all about it and he rather looked as if he wished I would shut up. In fact, he did say to shut up several times, fool doesn't realise that learning stops for nobody. And I seem to have irritated him to such distraction that he stopped whining on about that W.A.A.F. girl he’s pining after, so I'd call that a brilliant success. She is in fact, both very much engaged and utterly disinterested. It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so damn grating. I hate staying silent about such things, and so hearing all this damn rambling about women puts me out of sorts. They do go on about how disinterested I seem.  
‘Waiting for marriage, DC?” I think not. Hem hem. 

Anyhow, that’s about all I can say for the present. If you have any more news, or failing that want to draw me out some more tactical diagrams to read, you are welcome to. Makes your letters a lot longer to read which is only ever good. 

Yours fondly,

F.D.C.

This morning in fact, the Captain had received another. The day looked rather busy ahead, so he would contrive to open it at the end of the day. It would be a lovely, relaxing way to spend his brief sliver of an evening, and he was quite looking forward to it. 

He was quite in the middle of work when a private flagged him down.

"Sir!" He saluted. "Phone call for you!"

The Captain nodded. Spotlight maintenance could wait for just a while.

He picked the phone up, a disembodied voice echoing on the other side.

"Hello? Hello?" The phone crackled, making it very hard to discern the voices owner, but the Captain had a hunch.

"Fred? Is that you?"

"Yes!" Said the voice very loudly. "Finally! I've been trying to get through to you for ages! Nearly missed my train!"

"Your train?"

"Yes, the train to London. Just thought I should tell you it's been delayed, so you aren't waiting there too long."

"Excuse me?"

That he would be waiting anywhere tonight was news to the Captain.

"There was a delay on the line so I should get into King's Cross by quarter past seven. That doesn't mess up our plans too much, does it?"

Oh God.

"Did we have plans for today?" The Captain asked timidly. "I didn't realise, I'm on duty tonight."

"What, you- didn't you get my letter?"

"Only this morning, and I haven't opened it yet."

"Shit." Said Freddie, which was very much the appropriate reaction.

"Why the rush, anyway? What's going on?" Asked the Captain again, suddenly very nervous. What if something had gone wrong? Why was Freddie in such a hurry, and why tonight?

"My training's finished. I had to come by London to join my squadron and I thought we could see each other tonight." He sighed. Behind him a whistle shrieked and the sounds on the other side of the phone intensified tenfold. "I have to go- goodbye!"

The line went dead.

Damn. Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn. That was what the Captain thought. Down to the very last damn. It was impossible to get a nights leave this late, but any moment with Freddie was a special one and this was a very significant night. Even so, he could not simply run off. That would not bear thinking about to anyone with a sense of responsibility.

Then he saw Lieutenant Cadogan coming down the corridor and an idea formed in his mind.

"Cadogan." He flagged him down. "I hear you have the night off tonight."

Cadogan was a slight, amiable man with a pair of eyebrows that gave his face a permanent look of surprise. He looked up.

"First time in weeks. I'll be happy for it, they're working us to the bone."

"Do you think you could cover for me?" The Captain asked, with a tingling of guilt running up his spine. "Something's come up, I really need tonight off."

Cadogan fell silent, his foot tapping an agitated rhythm against the wooden floor. He did not want to say yes.

"I've been looking forward to this for three weeks, you know."

The Captain did know. He also however knew that Cadogan owed him a favour. 

"You remember I covered for you when you and that waitress-"

"Yes I remember that!" Cadogan snapped. He chewed the side of his lip testily. "Is it life or death?"

It was life certainly. The Captain nodded.

"It is."

"Fine, but the next time you have a night off, I'm taking it."

"Absolutely."

"And we're even now, got it?"

"You're a great help, Cadogan. Thank you."

Several hours later, the Captain found himself at Kings Cross St Pancras station, watching as the train from Birmingham pulled into the station. It must have been the second or even the third train Freddie had gotten on that day, to have come all the way from the training base to London, as there was no direct train from that part of Wales, at least that he knew of. He hoped Freddie wouldn't be too tired to enjoy himself. The Captain strolled up and down the platform as passengers began to disembark, on the lookout for a familiar face. There, at the end of the platform he moved along in the vast throng of people, trundling towards the exit. He was headed off.

The Captain hurried after him, struggling amid the sea of people and luggage, calling out to him hopelessly. The boy kept up a rather frightening pace, considering he was carrying a large suitcase.

Then he stopped to read a sign, giving the Captain all the opportunity he needed. He jostled his way through the crowd, uttering 'excuse me' or 'sorry' every other second, before being shoved by an unwary elbow directly against the side of the man he was looking for.

"Hey, mind out!" Freddie looked over, a frown practically falling off his face as he realised who had jostled him.

"You're here?" He stared, bright eyed and brilliant. "I thought you couldn't make it."

"I wouldn't have missed this for the world." He admitted, a little thrill of excitement rushing through him. Freddie stood, resplendent in his grey-blue RAF uniform, looking every bit as strapping as it was possible for any man to look ever. It was shameful how hot under the collar he felt just looking at him. Oh dear Lord.

Freddie wrapped an arm around his shoulders, pulling him into a sort of half-hug, which was too short by half but that was probably for the best.

"Let’s get out of here so we can talk." Freddie said and the Captain, ever his faithful servant obeyed him.

When they were out in the open, stood outside the station as people hurried past, they stood together and the Captain wanted to hold him and kiss him and be utterly outrageous right here in the open, but marred by his own common sense, chose the comparatively rather lame option of telling Freddie how he looked in uniform.

"Very dashing... those RAF colours, you know... suit your eyes." He said weakly and gayly.

"Thank you." Freddie's eyes sparked with more entertainment than his words let on. "I thought you'd like to see me like this."

Did he ever. Freddie it seemed was perhaps getting too much perverse enjoyment from watching the Captain squirm. 

“I like the stick by the way, it’s a nice touch. You look every inch a gentleman officer.”

The Captain tapped it modestly against his leg. “I do pride myself on being one of those things.” 

“Oh shush.” Freddie pouted. “You’re a gentleman in the only way that matters. To me, anyway.”

“Good thing yours is the only opinion I care about then, isn’t it?” 

That made Freddie laugh, and the captain bathed in the glow that he gave off. 

“I’m very proud of you, you know. Training isn’t easy for anyone, and I’m sure the air force really put you through it.” 

Freddie nodded enthusiastically. “God, they really do. I thought I was in pretty good shape before we started, too.”

“O God, don’t we all? Basic training is hell for sure. Not even easy for the chaps who have muscles instead of brains, and that’s saying something. Very necessary I’m sure! But I’m certainly glad they aren’t going to put me through it again. Not sure these old bones could take it.” 

“I’m sure they could if they tried! Besides, I’m sure that job of yours keeps you on your feet just as much as basic would.”

“You’re too kind. I’m sure basic would put me more out of puff than it did you. You’re a young man after all. I daresay I’m outside my prime for that sort of stuff.

“Oh, what rot.” Freddie declared, elbowing him in the side. “You’re as sprightly as anything, and you know it.” 

“My joints aren’t what they were ten years ago.” The Captain insisted, miffed.

“Bully for your joints, then! You’ll make yourself old thinking like that, you really will.”

The Captain harrumphed. “That makes no sense.”

“Neither do you, but here we are. And it’s going to be a wonderful night, isn’t it?”

Freddie looked knowingly at him with those big, playful eyes and the Captain felt himself soften. 

“It’ll be a special one for sure.” He agreed. It was very sappy, so he wouldn’t say it, but all their nights together were special. 

Freddie set his case down at the end of the road, leaning an arm idly on the Captain’s shoulder. 

“Where should we go, then? I know you didn’t exactly have time to plan, but you probably know London better than I do.”

“I’m sure we can find a pub around here somewhere. Maybe even with rooms to rent. That’d cut out some of the complicated bit.”

“You don’t fancy somewhere a little more… I don’t know, special?” The Captain knew that tone anywhere, slightly wheedling, designed to bring things into question. It seemed Freddie had more of a plan than he was letting on exactly. 

He gave Freddie a wry look. “I suppose you know the sort of place you’d like to go, then?”

“I certainly do.” Said Freddie, contrary as ever, and flagged down a cab. 

They ended up, after a long, confusing and at times antagonistic conversation with a cab driver that lasted at least ten minutes longer than it needed to, which also made the fare more expensive. The Captain paid it alright, but he didn’t care at all for the look the driver gave him. He didn’t seem to approve of the company he kept. 

Despite the Captain’s (admittedly faint) protestations, they had ended up at the Savoy. The Bloody Savoy, oh hell. The concept of dining somewhere like that was already doing something to his blood pressure, and it made his wallet feel uncomfortably light in addition. Yet he followed Freddie, a son of very different sires as he seemed to glide into a table, a menu appearing in his hand as the Captain fretted after him, sweating inside his pristine uniform.

 

 

“You’re impossible.” Freddie smirked at his awkwardness over the table. 

“I just think that you should be more careful with your own money. RAF pay isn’t incredible, you know.” He said sensibly, ignoring Freddie’s teasing. 

“I do have my own money to fritter, you know.” He replied in a heartbeat. 

“And you’ll easily throw away ten pounds in a place like this. More, even. It can’t be infinite. Save it for something practical.” 

“I’d rather throw away ten pounds on you than on anything ‘practical’.” Freddie waggled his eyes, while under the table, shrouded by a mercifully long tablecloth, their legs mingled together, olive green brushing against blue-grey. The Captain had long held that the different branches of the armed forces ought to make a greater effort to get along. So really, they were just doing their bit. 

Meanwhile, Freddie flagged down the waiter, ordering food for both of them as the Captain had barely brought himself to look at a menu, and a bottle of white wine. The Captain didn’t understand the name written down or said aloud. Yet it was sure to be pricey. 

The two of them stuck out quite powerfully, the only ones in uniform in the whole place, yet somehow Freddie seemed perfectly at ease, so you could have painted him into the walls and nobody would have looked twice, except perhaps to admire him. Indeed, he was just about the only thing that took the Captain’s mind off how dreadfully out of place he felt. He supposed such discomfort was what came when you decided to fraternise with the gentry. 

A sommelier reached them at the table, expertly dispensing wine into two glasses for them to taste. Freddie sipped at his, considering it for a second. 

“That’s excellent. Thank you.” 

When they were once again alone, the Captain raised his glass in a toast. 

“May I just say,” He began, “I knew from the day I met you that whatever you put your mind to doing would be absolutely incredible. The RAF are very lucky to have you. As am I.” Freddie raised his glass too, and they found a rather poignant moment there in each other’s eyes. “To you.”

“To you.” Freddie repeated, as if in a dream. They drank. “It’s really going to be something else isn’t it? Being a fighter pilot. It’s really happening.” 

“Undoubtedly. You’ll be out there flying missions before you know it.” 

Freddie put his glass down, which was already empty. He glanced away nervously. “And what if I’m no good at it?” 

“You’re an old hand behind the wheel.” Said the Captain, and then he wondered if there even was a wheel. It was a detail he had never really managed to pay attention to. “It’ll come easily to you.”

“It might be different. I’m sure it’s easy enough to lose track of things in the fray, and it’s the Jerry you haven’t spotted that gets you, that’s what they say. I only need to be unlucky once.” 

“Luck isn’t the only component though, is it? There’s skill and nerve, you have those by the bucketful. And it’s in your blood. There’s a legacy in those bones of yours, it won’t let you down.” The words ‘it can’t’ echoed through the Captain’s head. It could not bear thinking about.

“Well the thing with legacies,” Said Freddie, shifting uneasily in his unnecessarily grandiose dining chair. “You either live up to them or you just don’t.” 

“No nonsense, Freddie. You’ll do just fine. Anyway, where are you off to tomorrow?” The Captain intervened. “You do know where you’re being posted, don’t you?”

“Yes. I’m off to RAF Northolt for the present, with XXX squadron. That’s not too far from here at all, so we can meet up if we see much short leave.” 

The Captain nodded, not adding that it seemed unlikely at present. They could have that conversation later, or even not at all. 

“What will you be doing? If I can ask.”

“I think the official directive is to protect London and South-East England. But who knows? Maybe we’ll see some action on the continent. God knows I’d love to see France again.”

“I didn’t realise you had spent time there. Have you travelled much?” The Captain watched, satisfied as Freddie’s face lit up, buoyed no doubt by happy memories.

“Oh, a little here and there. Mostly to France.” He said modestly. “What about you? Ever left the country?”

“I’ve been to Wales a few times on work.”

“Never off the island?” 

“Not me, no.” The Captain admitted. “But your family’s French, aren’t they? Do you visit family out there at all?” 

“Oh no,” Freddie grinned. “No Du Chatelets left in France, not by the same name anyway. A few of us came to England, that’s my branch of the family, and none of the rest were spared by the revolution. So we’re an English family now, not that it matters since there’s nothing left for us out there anyway.” He tilted his head to the side. “We did make a little detour to the old family estate, but there wasn’t much to look at. Burnt down in 1815, and most of its built over now anyway. Big collection of old stones. I can’t imagine living there, though. I’d feel like a stone in someone’s shoe knocking about in a house that big. And I’m not sure we even count as French anymore by anybody’s estimates. We’d all stick out like a sore thumb.”

“Perhaps.” Said the Captain. 

“They were an interesting bunch though, the old Du Chatelets. Big tradition of natural philosophy, not that we’ve really carried that on. Funny that.” Freddie leaned over the table, resting a thoughtful and mildly socially-unacceptable elbow on the table and looking at the Captain intently. “But what about you? Your clan can’t have lived in Britain forever. Least, I suppose you could, but that’d be awfully boring.”

“To be honest, I’ve no idea what my family did before they moved here.” The Captain said. “My grandfather set up a bookshop in the east end, back in the 1870s when he moved here, but I don’t know much about him, or where he was from before.” 

“That’s a pity.” Freddie’s hand grazed his over the table comfortingly. “Have you ever thought about trying to track your lineage? It might be nice for you to have some family somewhere.” 

“It’s not so important.” The Captain shrugged in the amber glow of the lights. “And it’s not like I’m alone out here anyway. I have a cousin who lives in Bristol, and she has children.” 

“Oh, yes I think you mentioned her once.” Freddie nodded. “Are you very close?” 

“No, but I see her from time to time. For Holidays and such, if I can get the time off. It’s nicer than spending them alone.” 

Freddie nodded, though he didn’t look completely satisfied. “Well, I’m your family now. I’m here for you, if you’re ever lonely.”

“I know.” The Captain acknowledged. “It means a lot to me.”

“I really feel like I ought to know all this about you already. I feel like I’ve known you forever, and then something like this comes up and I realise I hardly know anything about you at all. It’s strange.” 

“You know everything about me that matters. You know I’ll tell you whatever you ask about.”

“Yes.” Freddie sat up again in anticipation. “You know, I think that’s our food coming.” 

“It looks like it.” The Captain agreed and lo, for it was. 

Freddie seemed far more interested in what the Captain was having than what he himself had ordered, and kept helping himself to bits of it, grinning like a cat. The Captain was very tempted to slap his hand each time he tried it and call him a pest, but that just seemed like a flagrant violation of social protocol. He made do with glaring at him each time he tried it. 

“Have you ever eaten here before?” He asked between mouthfuls. 

Freddie stopped chewing to shake his head. “Not here. Places like it though.” 

“Then you should know to behave better.” The Captain gave him a disapproving look. 

Freddie wiped his lip with his napkin, and leant over. “Oh dear.” He said with bright eyes. “Do you think they’ll kick us out?” 

Then he nabbed another piece of the Captain’s steak. Damnable thing he was. 

“I know I would.” 

Freddie raised a jaunty eyebrow. “Flirt.” 

The Captain tried to think of something to say to that, fell utterly short and decided that he had been taking the high road. He relegated himself to his sorely depleted dinner. 

Finally, after wolfing through a really marvelous amount of too-expensive food, Freddie leant back in his chair. “God, I’m stuffed. I think I might just slip into a slight coma right here and now.”

“Well, try not to, won’t you? I don’t want to carry you out of here.” 

Freddie stretched in his chair, and groaned. “I wish you would.” 

The Captain almost wished he could.

“Lets get out of here, eh? Find somewhere more comfortable for you to sleep than on this table.” With more success than he could usually boast, he caught the eye of a waiter, and asked for the bill. 

“I’ll cover it.” Freddie said, which was just as well since he had eaten the lion’s share of absolutely everything. 

“Are you sure?” Said the Captain, exceedingly politely. “I suppose I could pay for wherever we stay the night. Even things out.” After all, this was what he earned money for. 

“Oh no, not necessary. I sprung tonight on you, I ought to pay for it.” Freddie nodded. “Besides, I was thinking we might stay here- I have a fancy for somewhere frightfully ostentatious tonight. I hope you’re okay with that.” 

“As long as we can be discreet, it doesn’t matter to me.” The Captain watched dazedly as he paid the bill, wondering that anyone in the world would see fit to spend that much money on him. He loved Freddie for that though, that he was always in earnest. 

It seemed, he loved Freddie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you believe it? There's more to this chapter. I can't bear to hold onto this leviathan anymore, so just keep your eyes out and you may see a part 2.
> 
> Enjoy!!! I gave this what I'd call a lofty skim, so forgive me for any errors, and feel free to ask about historical accuracy/relevance! I try to keep things accurate!


	17. Tell You Tonight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night takes Freddie and the Captain to new heights.

The Captain watched from a distance, as Freddie spun his wild tale to the woman behind the desk, who chewed on the end of her pencil rapturously. Either she was hanging on his every word or she found a handsome face a little too distracting to be in her line of work. Either way, the Captain sympathised.

Then, turning around, he strolled leisurely back to the lift which the Captain was standing next to, hopefully looking inconspicuous, and got in. The Captain followed him. Freddie asked the lift operator to take him to the third floor, and the Captain said nothing. A group of young ladies, seemingly already quite tipsy trundled about between two rooms, of which the doors were repeatedly opened, and banter expressed exuberantly between one door and the other. It seemed like a dashed ineffectual system, but that and any noise complaints were strictly their business. He followed, at a discreet distance, as Freddie opened the door to room 331 and went in, leaving the door just slightly ajar. 

The Captain shut the door securely behind him. He stood, in distraction, as the environs caught him. The room was utterly, utterly lavish, from the silk wallpaper to the beautiful chinese vases on the mantelpiece. He was very grudgingly impressed. 

“Isn’t this wonderful darling?” Freddie lay easily on the bed, oozing the sort of charming irreverence that personified an RAF officer. He had not taken off his shoes. “Don’t you just feel like a king?” 

“It’s extravagant, for sure.” The Captain said, taking efforts to remain the voice of reason. “How on earth did you afford this?” 

“Couple who were meant to have this room tonight managed to give themselves food poisoning, went home. And you see, they’d already gotten it all prepared. So that young lady behind the desk let me have it for cheap, after I told her all about how I’m leaving tomorrow, to join the war.”

“Off to the front lines, are we?” The Captain gave him a rather unimpressed look, folding his arms. “Didn’t realise the Jerries were besieging north London.”

“Well, I may have embellished this and that, but I got us the room, didn’t I?” 

“So long as the poor girl doesn’t expect you to propose on the way out.” 

“Oh please, she’ll have forgotten about me in an hour. Did you lock the door?” 

The Captain nodded. He was not however, entirely impressed. “You’re far too used to being able to get your own way with everything Fred. Sooner or later, people are going to start saying no to you.” 

“So I’m making the most of it!” Freddie insisted airily, looking entirely unabashed. “Life is about enjoyment, and indulgence! Why should I deny myself the stuff that makes life worth living?” He winked. “Besides, aren’t you the one who should be setting an example? You shouldn’t spoil me so much.”

The Captain sighed wryly. “You’re a beast. You know I don’t have it in me to do that.” 

“I know and I love it. If you aren’t careful though, you’ll end up saddled with me for life, and you’ll be sorry then.”

“Oh dear.” The Captain smiled fondly. “I suppose I’ll have to bear it as best as I can.”

“Yes darling, stiff upper lip eh?” Freddie sat up on his elbows, and gave the Captain a look with a lot of meanings. “Now since you can’t help it, come over here and let me indulge some of those vices I’ve been cultivating.” 

The Captain sat himself down on the side of the glorious bed, untying his shoelaces as a hand curled gently around his waist. 

“I’m so glad you managed to make it.” Freddie admitted into the crook of his neck. “I can’t imagine tonight without you.” 

The Captain felt his ears heating up. “That’s… nice of you to say.” He said, pathetically inadequate for any sentiment he meant to express. 

“How lucky.” Said Fred, his words pressing, hot and dusky into the back of the Captain’s neck. “The truth is so rarely nice.”

The Captain, in a truly reckless move that was entirely unprecedented, tore off his second shoe without even unlacing it the whole way. Hands snaked around his body, alive around him. He too was alive when those hands touched, when he felt. 

Words writhed out of his mouth, uncontained. 

“I’m yours, Fred... Have me.”

 

\-- - --

The Captain lay, quite enjoyably exhausted, in a tangle of limbs at least half of which belonged to him. The two of them shared an affectionate and fairly sweaty silence. The Captain had long thought Freddie perfect in every conceivable way, with all his joys and his antics and the mischievous smile that accompanied them. But to see him like this, exposed and vulnerable, it was like his blood turned to oil, his heart a fire striker, fizzling into life on every beat. 

Freddie was healthy, unblemished, breathtaking. He was subtly muscular, lean, and just soft enough to feel so supple to the touch. There was a large birthmark, a round splodge the size of a half crown just visible on his shoulder. The Captain could have spent an eternity just looking.

“Well darling, I don’t think there’s another person on earth that I’d rather fall into a life of sin with.” A little voice drifted from the pillow next to him. Lo, for the object of his ecstasies spoke.

“Oh?” Said the Captain, kissing him. “That’s what this is, is it?”

“It seems everyone thinks so.” Freddie said, which wasn’t really an answer. 

“Well I don’t.” Said the Captain plainly. “And I don’t think you do either.” 

“I know it’s what I choose, regardless of the consequences but that’s not the same is it?”  
“Is this about that quack you were seeing?” The Captain asked, concern seeping through his voice. 

“Oh, not really. I just don’t understand how everyone is so sure about right and wrong, when I can never quite make my mind up.”

“Belief is belief, Freddie. Knowledge has nothing to do with it. If you ask me, we could discover any day that one particular religion was right about everything and I doubt even that would reduce the number of faiths. You don’t need knowledge for belief. People judge our… ‘lifestyle’ without experiencing it, without knowing us. It’s just a vague idea to them. All they know is that they shouldn’t tolerate it.”

“Then why does it have to hurt?”

The Captain frowned. “I don’t hurt you do I, Fred?”

“No, never you. But it’s dangerous; I worry. It hurts to be around my friends when they talk about love.”

“I know.” The Captain nodded. “It hurts me too. But, I’m quite sure it’s worth it all anyway. Hang them all. I don’t care a jot if I get to be with you.”

Freddie clung tighter to him, eyes searching the Captain’s face. “I like how certain you sound.”

“I feel more sure of it every day.” 

“Well, me too. Sure. I just have doubts occasionally, that’s all.” 

“What brought them on?”

“Active service.” 

The Captain’s brainheaved to the forefront an old memory, unused and collecting lint. He had been younger, not young, but young enough that he hadn’t quite begun to feel age seep in. Sitting by the side of a river as the wind blew straight through him. 

“I should warn you,” said his dear Robbie, when he had still held that title. “War isn’t designed for love. Something could happen, and it will, all the time. Things between us will get complicated. If I do come back it won’t be in the way you remember me. Do you understand?” 

The Captain had said yes, and he had been convinced he had meant it.

Robert looked at him in turn, and had seen that he didn’t. “There will be war where I am going.” He said, traced through with sadness. “It will happen soon. I think it’d be for the best that you didn’t think about seeing me anymore.” 

It had been the final ending. It had not felt final, not just then for every time they saw each other it was the last time. The Captain had only realised, almost a year to that day, that the inevitable next meeting would never come. It had been a long time coming, but he did not understand yet, and so it had still hurt him. 

“It’s a difficult business you know, Fred. Love in wartime. It’s more than likely to end in sadness, for at least one of us. I’d understand- it’d be an extension of duty really, if we finalised things. There’s really no shame in it.” 

“Well, I suppose so.” Freddie murmured, nodding. His hair tickled the Captain’s shoulder. Then he looked back at him. “What does that mean then?”

“Well. That we stop everything, draw a line under this whole thing and go about our lives.” 

Freddie blinked. “What? No. Don’t be an arse, darling, I’m not agreeing to that.” 

“Oh.” The Captain tilted his head, pondering closely upon Freddie’s brown curls. “You’re sure? There’s a lot of risk to it, things could change at any time. Being together will be harder, and so will being apart.” 

“Are you serious about me or not?” Freddie sat up, fixing him with a very severe frown in the yellow glow of the lamp. 

The Captain sat up too. As was, he felt far too much like he was being interrogated. “I am. But I want the best for you, too. This might not be it.” 

“We’ve talked about this, Teddy. You’re not getting cold feet on me, are you?”

“No. I just wanted to make sure, you know. Offer you an out. You know I love you, but if this worries you, it might just be a weight off your mind.”

“And be miserable on top of being worried? No, I can’t agree. I want to try anyway.” Freddie nodded, and rubbed his hand against the Captain’s neck, with an amused sort of tenderness. “That’s a stupid way to say i love you for the first time. But, me too.”

“Oh… Ah. Um. Well, good show.” The Captain panicked. Had he said that? Oh, he had, he had. He had meant it, and to have voiced it aloud strengthened him, in a way that somehow also made him tremble like a trifle being struck by a brick. Funny how that worked. 

Freddie smiled at him sheepishly. 

The Captain was beginning to think that he really wasn’t that good at any of this. 

“I’ve made things very odd now, haven’t I?” 

“You really have. You strange thing, you. What on earth am I meant to think of you?” 

“I wouldn’t know.” 

“Clot.” Fred said lovingly. “But it’s settled now anyway, we stay on with each other until things get untenable, and then… well, we can always find each other again after. So let’s have no more of this talk unless it’s necessary. You need to trust me- I know the risks too.” 

So he said, and the Captain could not discern whether or not he understood. But he chose to hope so. 

“Okay then.” He said, and smirked, more at himself than anything else. “My love.” 

Freddie clucked his tongue at him. “You’re such a scoundrel to tell me this now. When I’m leaving tomorrow.” 

“You’re not going far.” 

“Still! I’m going to be all distracted tomorrow, and that’s your fault! I’ll- I’ll crash my lovely new plane and it’ll all be your fault!” 

“They’ll just have to wait another day to send you up then. I can’t take it back now.” 

“Can’t you?”

“You wouldn’t want me to.” 

“True.” Freddie nodded and reached blearily for his watch, dropped without decorum on the nightstand. “Fucking hell. Quarter to three.” 

The Captain groaned. “I have to go in a few hours.” 

“Don’t! Stay here. GIve yourself a proper break for once.”

“Do you know how much trouble you’d get me in? I really can’t Freddie, I’m sorry.” 

“Fine. I’ll lie in on my own. And be lonely.” He pouted, rather more miffed than he was right to be given how the Captain had dropped everything to be there.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be, anyway? Northolt should be expecting you.”

“They’ve been expecting me since last night, they can give it a few hours.”

“What? The hell do you think you’re playing at? It’s your first day, you can’t just run off! Come on, we’ll go now.” 

The Captain hurried to his feet, pulling a very grudging Freddie out of bed by the arms. 

“Oh come off it! I called ahead already, said I’d missed my train and I’d stay overnight.” 

“And what did they say?” The Captain demanded, still trying to lift him out of bed. To Freddie it seemed more amusing than effective. 

“Oh not much, I could only get one of the engineers on the phone and he said he’d pass it along to Chieffy. So I’m sure it’s fine.” Freddie tumbled out of bed and landed in a rather unperturbed heap. “Come on darling, weren’t you so happy to see me?” 

“You’re too much, Fred.” The Captain dropped his arms. “If I was your CO I’d thrash your behind for pulling a stunt like that.” 

Freddie waggled his eyebrows at the Captain, clambering back onto the bed. “Do you thrash all your underlings, or just the handsome ones?”

The Captain smirked at him, and nudged him back off the side of the bed. “Only the ones who don’t know when to shut up.” 

“Oh, I don’t know when to shut up? I told you I love you and you said ‘good show’. You’re worse than I am, hands down.” 

“I am not.” 

“You are too!” Freddie situated himself back in bed once more, and proceeded to tug the duvet out from the Captain’s grasp. 

“Oh, you little bastard!” The Captain grabbed ahold of the duvet, trying to wrestle it away from him. “Stop it!”

“My duvet! My hotel room, my duvet! Get your own!” Freddie wrapped himself around the duvet like he was giving it a bear hug, so that the Captain couldn’t tug it away. It was now being used as a duvet by neither of them. Seeing a challenge posed to him, the Captain changed tactic. Curling himself around Freddie, still contorted around the duvet, he pressed himself close, pressing kisses to the back of his neck. 

“Freddie my dearest, who I love. Give the duvet back.” 

A hand lingered in its soft traversal of Freddie’s body, running gently over exposed ribs.

“You’re such a cad.” Freddie chuckled. 

“It’s such a strange night.” Freddie said straight up to the ceiling, as it looked back down at the two of them, its judgement made in silence. “We aren’t sleeping.” 

They weren’t. When pressed to it, the Captain wasn’t quite sure he could sleep if he wanted to.

“I’d rather just be in your company, since I can. Even if we just do nothing.” He continued. “And I can’t decide if im ecstatic or melancholy.”

The Captain turned Freddie around to look at him, and he surrendered himself into it, meeting the Captain with eyes that would soon begin to tire. 

“You’re all full of nerves.” The Captain stroked the hair back from his face. “You can’t help it tonight. Some nights I don’t manage to shake them either.”

“What do you do those nights?” Freddie asked with the air of a man who needed to know.

“I walk. Or cycle if I can, wherever I can. Until I can’t anymore, or until it’s day again. Time passes quicker than just lying by myself.”

“I don’t mind it passing slow, since you’re here. But I’ll try it, next time I need to. If I’m worried again.” 

“I hope that nothing will ever worry you again, Fred.”

“Be a dashed bad pilot then, wouldn’t I? Plenty of things I need to be worrying about.”

“I know it’s silly. You can’t stop me hoping though.”

“Don’t hope that. I can’t promise anything like that. I’ll feel bad.” 

The Captain contorted his neck, kissing along Freddie’s shoulder. 

“The things that I love have a habit of disappearing. Don’t judge me for wanting you safe.”

Freddie shifted himself over so that he was on top of the Captain, leaving the duvet to slide off the bed, stage left. They did not really need it, not together. 

“I can’t give you that safety. Not here and now. But darling, if I do die up there-”

“...Fred-”

“Darling. If it happens, you can take my last breath. I’ll breathe it for you only.” 

They kissed, and the Captain wept. He made no sound. 

Seventy nine years would pass, and the Captain would still cry silently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly on a night like that, I don't think I'd sleep either. 
> 
> We've got everything! Implied sexy times, duvet stealing, angst... love :'3
> 
> Gets v stream of consciousness towards the end, but then again, aren't most conversations at 3am like that?
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this one!!!! Was happy to post it- I much rather working on this than my jobs UwU... pity I can't write on the job or then I'd really get stuff done haha! Have a nice evening and take care of yourself in this heat!


	18. Spring Cleaning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alison and Mike engage in a bit of tidying.

Button House was in chaos. Complete, unbridled chaos. 

In short, Mike and Alison were ‘spring cleaning’. Neither of them had responded very kindly to the observation that it could not really be ‘spring cleaning’, as it was in fact, midsummer, and that what they termed ‘cleaning’ more closely resembled looking for old tat that could be discreetly sold off. As Fanny would have it, it was utterly disgraceful. 

The Captain did not hold such a strong stance on their activities. While it was of course quite disrespectful to auction off someone else’s things without telling them, an agreement had been made that no ghost's personal effects would be taken. After all, the rest of the previous Buttons did not care in the slightest about what happened in the material world, or they would bother to visit every few centuries. If he were honest, the Captain actually admired Mike and Alison’s initiative. All Campaigns into new territory were potentially very costly, and the greatest enemy of the armed forces had always been the treasury. By searching out such little antiquities that were not essential to Button House’s collection, they could theoretically make themselves money without parting with anything of value to themselves. 

That was the assumption, at least.

As a few of the ghosts 'helped', Alison foraged through the back of a dresser that, if appearances were to be believed, had not been opened since 1863. The layer of dust coating the whole thing almost suggested earlier. 

She leaned over, reaching so deep into the back of it that she almost disappeared from sight. If there were any kind of Narnia-esque situation, she was liable to fall and break her neck. For a woman who had nearly done the very same thing not so long ago, she was awfully cavalier about the risk. 

“See any lion?” Asked Robin, sticking his head through the top of the dresser, causing Alison to jump back, bumping her head on the dresser with a yelp. 

“Come now, Robin! A dresser that size, it’d have to be a very small lion, what!” He chuckled heartily to himself. 

“Not if lion- have magic.” Robin pointed out. This was entirely true. But if the lions did have magic, God help them all. 

“It wouldn’t need to be magic.” Julian pointed out. He rested on a deeply dusty chaise longue, occasionally dispensing intensely sketchy financial advice and ‘helpful insights’. “The lion doesn’t have to be magic, the wardrobe is the magic bit. If that dresser was bigger on the inside, who knows how many lions it could contain.”

“Yes but the wardrobe isn’t inherently magic-” The Captain explained to him. “The whole land and every creature in it is magic. The wardrobe was only a temporary gateway.” 

“I am never,” Alison growled, nursing her bruised skull, “letting you watch Narnia again.” 

The Captain nodded. “Noted. Julian, shut up. Now, you’re quite sure there’s nothing of value in there?” 

“You might even find more dust.” Julian noted, before sneezing loudly. It was more to prove a point than any genuine reflex. Dust, like everything, just passed right through them.

More gingerly this time, Alison reached into the very end of the bottom drawer. 

“Well, there’s always this… teddy?”

“Yes?” Said the Captain immediately. “What is it?” 

“I think it’s a teddy bear.” She continued, holding aloft what looked, with the best will in the world, to be a half empty sack. What might once have been a head now only resembled a slightly mouldy lump plaguing its side. 

Yet the bear was no longer the point of contention. Around the room, three heads had turned to look at him, not including that of the bear. 

“Did you just say yes? When I said Teddy?”

“What? Oh- No. Absolutely not. Nothing of the sort.” 

“Why’d you answer then?” Julian’s eyes bore deep into him, full of a sort of cunning amusement. 

Now was the time to think of something. Quick.

“I thought she said Captain!” He insisted crossly. 

Bad choice. 

“Funny that.” Noted Julian snidely. “Because those aren’t two words that sound very alike. Are they… Captain?” 

“Well the fact of it is, she enunciates horribly. I mean, great goodness, what on earth do they teach you in schools these days? Not proper pronunciation, that’s for sure.”

Alison, seemingly undeterred by this, stepped closer. She looked at him with a great deal of interest. He wasn’t used to women looking at him so closely. He would not crack however, under the pressure. He had to remain on the offensive. 

“Captain, is your real name Teddy?” 

“Of course not.” The Captain said, which was true, if a very qualified truth. “My name certainly isn’t Teddy, and frankly, Alison, it’s no business of yours.” His eyes flashed icily at her. 

“I was only asking.” She said, still unwilling to step down. “People are bound to get curious when you refuse to tell them anything about yourself.” 

“You know everything that you need to know about me, Alison. If you don’t want to call me Captain, just ‘sir’ will do.” 

Robin looked on, for all the world slightly disappointed. “Pity.” He said reproachfully, as if the Captain could choose what his name really was, which wasn’t entirely untrue since if he told someone the wrong name they had no way of knowing the difference. 

“Is it really?” He responded, not to be outdone on the matter. 

“Is good name!” Robin nodded. “Name of bear.” 

“Well technically it’s only the name of small cuddly bears.” Pointed out Alison, holding the aged teddy bear over her head. “Speaking of which, what d’you think we should do with this?” 

“Toy museum?” Said the Captain, as Julian was in the middle of saying ‘bin’. 

“You think a museum wants this?” Alison jangled it doubtfully.

“Well, it’s old and a toy, so I don’t know what else they’re putting inside a toy museum.”

“And people would come to see… this? It’s a bit ratty.” 

“Worth a try.” Julian shrugged. “Tell them it belonged to a princess or something, they might pay out for it.” 

Alison shrugged. “Guess I’ll put it with the auction pile then.” She dropped the bear with the pile for auction, which so far consisted rather sadly of an old wodge of black and white photos and an extremely dented rolex. The ‘to keep’ pile loomed far higher, ministrated over by Fanny on her occasional indignant visits to the room, when she found a gap in her schedule of squawking unhappily at Mike’s equally lacklustre tidying effort, driven to the point of distraction by the fact that he did not pay attention to (or admittedly, hear) anything she was saying.

While the Captain supported the initiative, he was beginning to seriously doubt that they would see any profit out of it. 

Proudly, Mike flung the door open, waving in his hand another slim stack of old photos. 

He tossed them rather carelessly into the auction pile, along with a rather dull little piece of metal. 

“Jackpot!” He said hopefully. “Also, I think I’ve discovered a new species of earwig. It’s like no bug I’ve ever seen.” 

“Oh my god Mike, are we going to need more bug spray?” Alison looked up, none too pleased, from a particularly musty bookshelf. 

“No! Because they’re now extinct.” He tilted his head. “We do need more vacuum bags though.” 

Hold on, now. The Captain peered closer at the new auction items.

“Hold on just a second there!” He exclaimed as Fanny appeared at the door, hyperventilating with reckless abandon. 

“Alison!” He barked angrily. “What on earth d’you mean by this? We agreed, nobody’s personal effects were to be- to be fiddled with!” He waved his stick angrily at Mike, closing upon him. “What on earth do you mean, fiddling with my things?!”

“You wish he was fiddling with your things.” Julian smirked. 

“Hold your tongue, Fawcett!” The Captain yelled back. 

“I tried to stop him!” Declared Fanny hysterically. “He wouldn’t listen! Not to a word I said!” 

“Okay okay guys, calm down! How are we meant to know what’s yours if you don’t tell us? We’ll just put them back, there’s nothing to worry about.” Alison gesticulated tiredly. 

“What’s happening?” Mike squinted, as if looking really, really closely might somehow enable him to commune with the dead.

“I need you to put all those photos back.”

“What, all of them?” 

“The ones you just got.”

The Captain raised a finger. “And the brooch.” 

“And the brooch too.”

Mike picked up the brooch, shoved it in a pocket, which made the Captain’s heart hurt just slightly, and flicked through the photographs. “I… don’t really know which is which. Which ones are we keeping?” 

Alison looked at the Captain. “Which ones are yours?” 

“Would you just let me look at them?” 

“Fine.” Alison took the photos from Mike, fanning them out on a nearby desk. “There you are.” 

The Captain looked over the photos, running his hand along the surface of the table, though he could not touch it. These were his. It felt odd to see them again, in the flesh. So many years had passed since he had tucked them neatly into that bureau drawer. At least it had been dry in there. The photos had aged, but not to the extent that comes with exposure to the sun. Most of them were pictures of landscapes, planes, blurry shots of pilots grinning wildly from halfway out of the frame. Few of them were in focus. The Captain treasured them wildly. 

“Up til there.” He pointed out. “All of those are mine. The rest I don’t recognise.” He paused. “Where’s the envelope they were in?” 

“Was the envelope really that important?” Alison gave him a skeptical look. It said that he had already taken up plenty of her time already. 

“It was to me.” He said, feeling himself left bare, uncomfortably candid in front of her. 

“Mike? Do you still have the envelope?” 

“I threw it out- I can get it back, though.” He leaned against the doorframe nonchalantly. He had acquired a dust mustache. It might have suited him quite handsomely if it weren’t quite so wonky.

“Thank you.” Said the Captain, though of course he could not hear him. It just seemed right. 

Julian peered over, had a look at the Captain’s photos and managed to look entirely unmoved by them. Good. They weren’t for him.

“Expecting something else, Fawcett?” 

Julian paused, choosing his words. The Captain was certain that he had been expecting (or at least hoping for) something entirely more lewd. 

“Well, they’re not very good are they?”

“They aren’t good photos, no. But what’s that got to do with anything?”

Julian considered, and shrugged. “They probably wouldn’t sell for anything, would they?”

“I wouldn’t have thought so. What on earth would possess someone to buy someone else’s old photos? Unless they had artistic merit.” 

“Not even that, necessarily. You know, there’s a huge market out there for vintage pornography. With a good polaroid camera and some old fashioned clothes, you could make quite a profit. Alison-” 

“Not in this house!” Fanny nearly screamed. “I will not stand to see Button House defiled by such- such- wanton debauchery!” 

“Thing is, Fanny, it’s not really your decision to make-” 

“No!” Yelled Alison, with almost as much fervour as Fanny. The Button line truly did entail a terrific pair of lungs. “Under no circumstances am I making fake antique porn, and that is final!”

“Wow.” Said Mike. “That’s what they’re talking about?!” 

“What’s going on?” Kitty appeared through the wall behind Alison, who had to stifle half a heart attack. “Oh!” She bounced up and down excitedly. “My bear!” 

Alison picked up the bedraggled bear, which dangled decrepidly in her hand. “This is yours?” 

“Yes, but you can have her too, if you want!” Kitty smiled enthusiastically at her. “Her name is Cassandra and she loves tea parties!” She frowned for a second. “It’s a pity that she’s lost her dress.” 

“Okay.” Said Alison, leaning back against a shelving unit and trying to breathe deep breaths. “Have we found anything that’s actually worth selling? That doesn’t already belong to someone here?” 

“Well, theres’s the-” Mike pointed at the rolex. “Watch. Maybe we could get a tenner for it on ebay? More, even?” 

“This is a waste of time.” Said Alison.

“Yeah.” Said Mike. “This sucks. Fancy a cup of tea?” 

Alison’s tensed shoulders dropped wearily. A little cloud of dust appeared around them like incorporeal pauldrons. “God yes.” 

“I’ll put the kettle on.” He dropped the brooch absent mindedly on the side table with the photos, despite all of the Captain’s protestations. 

“Don’t forget about my envelope!” He called after them. 

“I won’t.” Said Alison, as she left. 

Several faces turned to the Captain. This did not include Kitty’s, as she had entered a sort of stuffed toy trance, or Robin’s, as he seemed to be crawling through the bookshelf into the other room. Now there was a fellow who lived free of the confines of social expectation. So, two faces.

“Now is not the time for slacking!” The Captain barked. “We may as well keep looking. There has to be something of value in this house.” 

Julian shrugged and walked out after Alison and Mike. 

Fanny, who had not been at all interested in their little money making scheme earlier, stepped forward. “Are these all your things?”

He nodded. 

“It’s not much, is it?”

“No, Fanny. I suppose not.” 

“I wouldn’t have been at all happy to leave so little behind.” She said. “Why, they’re not even good photos! Why on earth would you keep these?” 

It took the Captain a few seconds to realise she wasn’t meaning to insult him. 

“They were given to me by a friend.” He said simply. “I wouldn’t throw someone else’s photos away.”

“That’s all that was in that drawer of yours?” 

Fanny looked almost disappointed. 

“Disappointed you, have I?” The Captain smiled wanly. “Everything else was found and returned to my family. What they’d want with my things who knows. Most likely they sold them.” 

“I would never have stood for that!” She insisted crossly. “To see one’s precious possessions pawned off like… like common tat!” 

The Captain decided not to point out the very limited amount of control over such things that he had at the time. It wasn’t really about that, anyway. He patted her on the shoulder. 

“I don’t really mind, Fanny. I never had any intention of leaving much behind me.” 

“Well, that’s okay for some!” She balked. “Some of us were tasked with leaving behind a legacy! It’s not easy, you know!”

She slammed her hand against the desk, which of course it passed right through, as ghostly hands were wont to, even if their owners occasionally forgot that they were incorporeal. 

“God knows how I have tried to maintain this estate! Look at it! Look at it now- the shelves need dusting, the floors need repairing, the front door is broken, and who knows what else!”

“Well-” Started the Captain, only to be quickly interrupted. 

 

“I came to Button house when I was seventeen, you know!” She continued. “And as soon as I saw it, I loved it. I took such efforts to see that it never changed, that everything was kept in good order. Perhaps you could call me silly, but I always thought that for however long time went on, Button house would always remain the same. And Alison! She’s a Button at least, even if it’s only by half. But I find it so hard to understand what she's doing to this house. She doesn’t love it, or understand it. She just wants to make money for herself! And trade is such a crude thing for a Button to go into, I really…”

“Now now, Fanny. I’m sure trade isn’t as ugly a business as you might think. Besides, from what I hear, it’s quite normal for country estates like this one to engage in financial endeavours. Some of them charge entry for their art collections. There was an advert for one on the History channel just the other day.”

“Well, why can’t they just do that then? After all, Button house has by far the best collection of art in the county!”

“I’m not sure that sort of financial model would quite make up for the money they’ve already spent. Besides, the structural integrity of the walls and floors would need some work before you could admit people in. If someone got injured, Alison and Mike would be financially responsible, and that’s the last thing they need.” 

“Then… I suppose this is for the best. If it keeps the house in Button House. I just hope this hotel won’t be too barbaric.”

“Don’t worry.” He reassured her. “We’ll do our best to steer Alison into the most agreeable actions, won’t we?” 

“Yes, of course.” She nodded prudently, pushing that wistfulness down into a much more distant part of her psyche. “Button house will always remain. I did try to stop him touching your photos, you know.”

“I appreciate it. Very much.”

She nodded, retaining once again that steely will that had always defined her. “Will you tell me about these photos, then?”

He smiled to himself, and he felt it sincerely. The connection between himself and those little pieces of treated paper strengthened. “If you want. Of course I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited and posted this on my phone so the editing may be a little wonky! I'm off sailing for the next week, I wish you all well!
> 
> Aaaand, a quich shoutout to Orlaith from the discord, who made this fantastic playlist for In The Aftermath! 
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4z13ENf0TFHhzUgv0zT5vY?si=XSgqEhnzSymoXmfT-yjtCQ


	19. A Packet of Letters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sort of letters you might find in a discarded envelope, in a distant corner of some run down country house.

Dearest Darling,

What fun there is to be had at RAF Northolt! The whole squadron seem like very nice chaps! A few of them were RAF reserves, so they were called up as soon as war was declared! Therefore me and Bonham aren’t too outstripped by our peers. Bonham’s mother sent him a super camera, so we have been having some fun with it! Find attached (7) pics of the lovely area and nearby town, (4) pics of our Hurricanes! The two chaps under the propeller are Kingsley and his engineer. Kingsley is australian, but he moved here for school, so he only has an accent when he’s very distracted. There’s squadron leader Wells sat in his cockpit doing some checks. Told me very nicely to piss off and stop being a nuisance a second after I took the photo. He has such a reserved air to himself normally that it utterly stuns you when he barks out an order. The planes are gorgeous, don’t you think??? I’m sure I’ve never seen such beautiful contraptions! I know they’re all technically the same but when I first flew in my beautiful SL-D, I could feel those reverberations echoing through my soul. I have named him Beaut! He is a handsome little thing, and I must be very kind to him, because I rely upon him. Bring me home safe, Beaut! Fly poorly, Jerry! No matter what, I shall always come back to you, darling. You may rely upon it. Also included are two pictures of the lot of us, I am not in the first one as I was taking the photo. In the second, I’m that lively sort of blur in the top right hand corner. I was still getting into position when they took it. 

There is also a ‘nicer picture’ of me, as Bonham thought you’d be bored to death of all these planes and trees. I think I look rather odd in it, but I cannot take another, as I have just dropped his camera. I have to buy him a new one now. Shall probably take so long about it that he just forgets. Anyway, you can hang on to that until I find a better picture of myself. I should like one of you to keep on me, discreetly of course, just for luck. I’m sure you have better things to do than have your photo taken, don’t feel like you need to rush off this instant, but if you could send one sometime I would be grateful. Everyone here has their own little keepsakes. It would do me good to have something to keep safe. 

Ever yours, F.D.C

 

Teddy Darling,

Thank you for the letter. I am sad to see you leaving on such short notice but I’m sure the expeditionary force wouldn’t call upon you so immediately if they did not need you. I would have liked to see you before you left, though. I suppose there must be something or other happening in some parts, or else it wouldn’t be a war. Still, it seems there is little enough going on that I have little enough to do except run up my tab at the officers bar. Every so often a messerschmidt or a focke wulf will trundle about close enough that we’re sent after it. Kingsley got an unconfirmed off on one of them but that’s the closest I’ve come to bagging one of my own. On your side, I hope they aren’t giving much trouble. If you’re building bridges and railways and the like, be sure to keep an eye out for bombers and always remember- it’s the Jerry you don’t see that gets you. I hope that’s useful advice on the ground too, as I haven’t much else to give. What I’m trying to say is, keep yourself safe out there, darling. For my sake as well as your own. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you out there. 

Yours and devoted, F.D.C

 

My Love,

I have not heard from you yet. I suppose post from France is slow, but if you’re putting off writing because you don’t know what to say, any words will do. I feel like a dreadful cad swanning around in my uniform like I’m some sort of national darling. I’ve done absolutely nothing of note, haven’t seen off any Jerries and the only injury I’ve suffered at all is a bruised lip after I tripped getting out of my plane. I never wear uniform off base when I can help it for the sheer embarrassment of it all. And we do get to leave quite often- purely since it’s so damned quiet. If people should look twice at me it should not be because I am fighting for their freedoms, and I am not, and I have not. All I want to do is see the skies, and feel the sun on my back, and hold you- I get most of those things regularly enough, and through no sacrifice or indignity of my own. It is no less selfish a life that I am leading, even now that we are at war. 

I want this to go with the next post, so I shall have to finish up. Some local so-and-so has invited us all hunting, so I will see if that is a sport to be enjoyed in these strange days. Stay well, where you are and don’t you dare get injured. And if you must, so be it! But whatever you do, don’t die. I may come to prove myself yet. Then we can both do good, meaningful things together. 

Your erstwhile friend, F.D.C

 

Ted,

Got my first kill today. I am sure it will be confirmed. Came upon a lone messerschmidt from above, without him even catching sight of me. The sunlight must have been in his face. The whole thing went up in flames & I did not see a parachute opening. 

Bonham said I got an easy shot. I hope I never get such an easy shot again. I feel like a murderer. 

If you are alive, if you are somewhere out there, please write soon. Every day I worry that you are lost.

F.D.C

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this finds you all well!! It is a short chapter I am afraid but it was quite a difficult one to get around to. This august has been an important, enjoyable and exhausting one. I have fit a whole season't worth of happenings into it, and now it has sped by me. Or at least that is what the clock says now that I come to check it. 
> 
> Enjoy! More, easier to write chapters will hopefully debut soon. Have a lovely night.


	20. The ebb of the Tides

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Captain lands

A thousand unwieldy little specks wavered upon unflinching seas. An armada of boats, perhaps the most that had ever made this crossing at the same time. The Captain did not know the exact numbers. He was wedged against the edge of a puttering little tug boat and the only reason he was not currently spilling his guts upon the unwelcoming sea was because they were already empty. The boat banked heavily to one side and it was only the pressure of men crammed in around him that kept him upright. It was like the physical part of him, the crust, had hardened into shape, crystallised by seawater, while any feeling parts just ping-ponged about on the inside, rendered either dormant or utterly useless. He was too cold to be afraid, but he was afraid anyway. 

The swell was intense, or at least it looked so to his own untrained eye. Every few minutes a wave sloshed across the bow, washing between the huddled figures, keeping everyone uncomfortably wet and soggy. Seawater filtered into the Captain’s shoes as if they were barely there at all. The little tug crested a particularly large wave, taking it sideways as the little boat struggled to control itself. Freezing cold seawater caught the Captain full in the face, making him splutter, coughing out seawater over the side. Unbidden, his hand clutched at his breast pocket, reassuring himself that the little tin containing his affects had not washed overboard. It had protected his precious letters from no small quantity of mud and God knows what else. He hoped it was as resilient against seawater.

Blinking his eyes back open, the Captain could hear a whining sound over the steady thrumming of the engine, growing steadily louder and louder. Was he going mad? The sound brought unheeded the hail of gunfire, shells reverberating all around him. Above them, sliding out of the thick cloud banked a single messerschmidt, its guns whirring onto action, drawing a trail of gunfire across the water, fizzing upwards, almost upon them- the Captain blinked and the craft appeared to dissolve in mid air, collapsing into so many wings and fins which dropped into the water like so much scrap metal. No pilot climbed from the carcass, no hand waved above the water. 

In its place a Hurricane swooped by, turning off a collision course in what to an amateur looked like a truly expert maneuver and flew alongside the starboard bow, before giving a little wiggle of its wings and disappearing upward into the cloud, just as quickly as it had appeared. Lifting one heavy hand he waved to the place it had once been. Could it have been Freddie? He knew the probability was truly minute, and yet… He had seen nothing to suggest that it wasn’t after all, hadn’t even noticed the registry or whatever it was called- those letters on the side. He suddenly felt just a little safer, knowing that somewhere above those clouds a Hurricane cruised, vigilant against any coming dangers. 

A shout echoed out from the prow, rippling back through the boat. Land. Oh God, and it was. Land, safety, home, all those things rushed through his head in a jumble. All he could think of was of being held, by those strong, gentle, freckled arms. Things happened around him, as they approached land, that he was aware of physically but not mentally. They were entering a port, and the ship continued, beaches where people would normally wade and bathe and frolic, grey in the cold and cluttered with boats and people, none of whom, it was safe to say were up to frolicking. The boat stopped, a few meters from the beach, and people began to jump out, already landed men wading back into the ocean to lend hands to those who might need them. The Captain ended up on the beach some way or another, and the people and the noises and the wind consumed him. He took the steps up from the beach onto the promenade, and stared silently, seeing and no more. 

The crowds surged about, tired and patient for they had all been on their feet for days. One more hour, several even, would not harm them any more. Officers and volunteers worked desperately to sort and assist them, with varying degrees of success. They were hardly sufficient to deal with the veritable tsunami of people, all needing some degree of assistance. It must have been a hellish job for them, and he sympathised. His sympathy hardly did them any good though. The Captain shuffled along among the crowd. He was not a pressing concern, nor did he have the capacity to be of any help. He could wait, he decided, ‘til it was later and things had quietened down to go through with the rigmarole. Not that he had much of a choice. 

It had been a long time since he had stood on solid, firm British soil. He had thought some wave of reassurance would pour through him, some patriotic vigour at seeing his own country once again. He felt ashamed of himself, somehow, for fighting, for returning to feel nothing. Perhaps it was about those who had not been so lucky. Or maybe it was just about the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t after all let himself feel at all. Not about how the tide seemed to be coming in over them, or about how little those waves seemed to think about the people they drowned. The Captain wasn’t sure they had a shot anymore. Not at preserving those little shards of justice and equity that they clung to as a people, if incomplete, if often insufficient. The Captain had seen a lot. But most of all he had seen the sparks of life and love washed out.

His ears suddenly felt so fuzzy. There were so many sounds now, each one blurring into the other. Vehicles and voices, and people shouting. He felt like something was pulling him, pulling him back, and he could only resist so much. He was going to sink and- wait. The Captain saw a blue-grey uniform, just visible against the many greens, and he was struck by it. It reminded him all of a sudden of some warm, tangential feeling of… relief? Well, not that exactly, but sodden and mud-splattered and bedraggled as he was, he felt suddenly more at home, more than standing on solid, English ground did. It was funny, that. That he might fight, that he might risk so much for something that felt like so little on the return journey. 

It was probably just because he was tired. It was the sort of tired that one got on exceedingly long journeys. When there was a long, long way to go still, leaving no time for rest or vulnerability. The Captain thought of his Fred, in constant vigilance at the controls of his plane, and felt wearier still out of sympathy. His heart ached with a sort of numbness, like the very idea of Freddie pinched at his heart, no matter how deeply he tried to bury it for now. He could barely afford to think. 

The Captain rested against the edge of the promenade. A man in a blue-grey uniform sat on the edge of it, feet dangling through the rail, and the Captain recognised the uniform. RAF, of course. The Captain found it comforting to see a pilot amidst all the infantry. 

The man turned his head just slightly, taking notice of his stillness in a sea of motion. 

“Welcome home.” 

The Captain nodded. 

“You must be dog tired. Join me?” He said, weariness obvious in his own voice. “Here.” He held up a dented hip flask.

The Captain took it, fumbling with the cap. It fell out of his hands, dropping to the ground and rolling back towards the RAF man, who picked it up without comment. The Captain felt the liquid slosh over his dry tongue. Gin. He swallowed a fairly substantial amount of it down, a tremor running unchecked through his body. It made him feel warm at his core though, and he was grateful for it. 

“Very kind of you.” The Captain croaked, passing the flask back. Precious little seemed to remain of himself in his words.

“Not so.” The stranger scoffed. “I don’t have enough gin for all of you.” 

Feeling suddenly more strongly the weakness in his legs, the Captain held the railing, lowering himself down, setting himself down on the ground. His trousers, already damp from the sea stuck to his legs, oozing a wet patch onto the already damp ground. 

‘Oh God,’ he thought, staring into the sea, as all the little boats struggled against it. ‘Oh, God.’ There was nothing else. They sat for a while, who knew how long, in the silence of constant sound. Boats rocked and tilted to shore, and then left again. Clouds writhed. Everywhere the Captain looked was grey.

“Hell of a thing, isnt it?” Said the stranger, taking the flask back and taking a swig himself. “I used to summer in Germany, when I was young. I wouldn’t have called them so different to us, not morally deranged. Not capable of such reckless hate.”

The thought scared the Captain, though not in the way his companion was. There was no shortage of hate to be found in England. “I suppose that there can be more going on in peoples’ minds than we see from the outside.” He allowed himself to follow the man’s thread of thought.

“But to follow such things, to pursue War and hatred so, a man would have to be evil, rotten from the inside out! I’m not sure I can believe that- can they, all of them be evil? All of the time? How could that not show through any more than it would in an Englishman?”

“Do you think that they’re evil?” Asked the Captain. 

“Wouldn’t they have to be?” 

“Maybe some of them are just wretched to the core. The sort of people who hate pours from for all to see. But no more than here in England. I’m sure there’s love and friendship in plenty of them for each other, even for strangers perhaps. It’s enough that they do evil things. Never mind if the people that do it are ignorant, or getting carried away with things they don’t always agree with. Never mind if they haven’t examined their motivations closely, or if with greater thought they’d act differently. They’re responsible.” 

“It’s enough to kill over?”

“If we must, we must.”

The Captain found that the stranger was regarding him with an intent far greater than before. The far side of his face was a bruisy malaise, swollen with a jagged cut along it, a lump of green purple and red. He followed the Captain’s gaze and turned his head away, staring straight down ahead of him. 

“Why are you here?” The Captain asked. He could not help sounding gruff and blunt. He just needed to ask.

“I’d heard about the crowds. I wanted to see for myself.” 

“That isn’t what I mean.”

Another pause held between the two of them. A ship’s foghorn bellowed from behind a cloud.

Quietly, the Captain’s stranger spoke. “I’m afraid. Of all that’s coming.”

The Captain reached a hand tentatively over, resting against the man’s shoulder. “It’s hard not to be.”

The stranger shrugged him away. His eyes rose, to level with the sea, filled with hurt and water. “You must have seen so much. I should have let you rest, I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Maybe it's better for me not to. I’ll just lose myself in it.” The Captain admitted. “What’s your name, officer?” 

The young man- for he was young, twenty or little more- maneuvered his face into a more resolute pose. “Pilot officer Allen Baxter, sir.”

The Captain reached a hand out for him to shake, which he turned to but did not take. The Captain noticed, a little late that his right hand, held close to his chest was bandaged tightly under his sleeve. 

“We’ll keep at it, Allen. And we’d be fools if we weren’t scared.” 

“I’m not sure that’s a comfort to me.” He admitted. 

“No.” The Captain agreed. “But it is what it is. Nothing to be done but this.” 

Allen nodded. Above them another hazy cloud blew across the twisted sky, and the Captain knew that today, no matter how long, would end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for how long this took. It's here now, regardless. 
> 
> It is difficult to tackle this kind of emotion. I hope I've done it justice.

**Author's Note:**

> This is dedicated to Alan, who died very recently and was a spitfire pilot. I know this was probably not the sort of subject that would interest you at all, but then again I don't know that. 
> 
> You were of the same era of the Captain after all. 
> 
> Thank you for showing me your spitfire placemats and letting me play your pachinko machine and romp around your fantastic garden with the frogs and the snakes. I'd like to imagine you as a ghost, still looking out over those gardens today. I would be very happy to know you were still there.


End file.
